WAR 02-25-2022-to-03-03-2022__THEWINDSofWAR

Housecarl · Feb 25, 2023

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ALERT - RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE - Consolidated Thread

@@@ How can the be true? Zippy's goons killing civilians doing non-military work? But the DS tells us they are the "Good" guys. :rolleyes: @@@ View: https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1629593902389813249

www.timebomb2000.com

INTL - China calls for Russia-Ukraine cease-fire, peace talks

China calls for Russia-Ukraine cease-fire, peace talks BEIJING (AP) — China has called for a cease-fire between Ukraine and Russia and the opening of peace talks as part of a 12-point proposal to end the conflict. The plan issued Friday morning by the Foreign Ministry also urges the end...

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VIDEO - Is the US CAPABLE of Fighting WW III? Military Expert's WARNING

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFFvxIlsRSM RT 1:19:12 The Space Force may sound like something from a sci-fi movie, but it’s as real as every other branch of the military … maybe even as real as UFOs. On this episode of "The Glenn Beck Podcast," Glenn talks to Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier...

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WAR - Main Persian Gulf Trouble thread

View: https://twitter.com/EndGameWW3/status/1625560959522668551

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WAR - Regional conflict brewing in the Mediterranean

Cohen: US must immediately issue credible military threat against Iran Charles Bybelezer The Israeli foreign minister’s call comes after IAEA inspectors discover uranium enriched to near weapons-grade in the Islamic Republic...

www.timebomb2000.com

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News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication

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Russia’s ‘dangerous’ move raises fears of new nuclear arms race

Putin’s decision leaves few incentives for countries such as China to adhere to a global anti-proliferation regime

Henry Foy in Brussels, Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington and Ben Hall in London
FEBRUARY 23 2023

Vladimir Putin’s decision to suspend Russia’s participation in the last remaining arms control agreement with the US has increased fears over uncontrolled nuclear proliferation and a potential new arms race.

Moscow’s move would leave a number of deployed US and Russian nuclear warheads unchecked for the first time in more than half a century, raising concerns about other emerging nuclear powers such as China having few incentives to adhere to a global arms control regime.

Rose Gottemoeller, a former deputy secretary-general of Nato and previously the US chief negotiator on the so-called New Start treaty, said Russia’s suspension was a “disaster” for arms control.

“So what does Putin think he’s going to accomplish by essentially launching an arms race with two major economic and industrial powers?” she asked, noting that Russia’s capabilities would be far outstripped in such a scenario.

Gottemoeller said it was “dangerous” for Moscow to abandon the New Start framework just when the US was beginning to upgrade its nuclear weapons and China was working on its own modernisation programme.

Putin’s decision removed any possibility of a return to mutual inspections of Russian and US nuclear sites, which Washington had been keen to resume after they were halted during the coronavirus pandemic, she said.

It will also vastly scale back the notifications that each side was obliged to make about missile movements, including for maintenance. Russia’s foreign ministry said it would comply with a 1988 agreement on notifications but this only applies to rocket launches.

The New Start suspension is the latest in a string of nuclear arms control treaties abandoned by Moscow and Washington. In 2019, both countries pulled out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which banned the US and Russia from having land-based missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500km. In the winter of 2020, they withdrew from the Open Skies treaty, which permitted surveillance flights over other countries’ military sites.

The three treaties were the foundation of cold war-era arms control efforts to reduce the risk of an arms race between Washington and Moscow, and to protect Europe from nuclear war.

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, a US lobby group, said that with the unravelling of the arms control framework, “Washington and Moscow could each double the number of their deployed strategic nuclear warheads in short order”.

“Such a course of action would produce an arms race that no one can win and that increases the dangers of nuclear weapons for everyone,” he added.

Mark Gitenstein, US ambassador to the EU and a longtime aide to President Joe Biden, said it was hard to gauge the extent to which Moscow was planning to ramp up its nuclear firepower.

“Whether it’s a bluff, whether they’ll do anything about it: hard to say,” said Gitenstein. “[But] it’s not good to have a non-proliferation arrangement, especially on nuclear arms, placed in jeopardy.”

Despite the suspension of New Start, Gottemoeller said it was important to remember that foundations of the non-proliferation regime remained in place. These are the Non-Proliferation treaty signed by 93 countries including Russia, the US and China, which calls for the prevention of sharing of nuclear technology, and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which prohibits nuclear weapons testing. Although they have not ratified the CTBT, the US and China have complied with it.

India and Pakistan are not members of the NPT and acquired nuclear weapons capabilities outside of its framework. The rival neighbours each possess more than 100 warheads, and infrequent clashes linked to the disputed territory of Kashmir have raised fears of a potential military conflict.

Efforts to find a new generation of post-cold war arms control agreements in recent years have floundered due to an unwillingness by Beijing to participate, and an understanding that any deal without China would be meaningless.

The Pentagon recently said China was on course to increase its nuclear warheads to 1,500 by 2035 — roughly equal to the number of warheads the US and Russia are permitted to deploy under New Start.

In its inaugural national security strategy late last year, the Biden administration said that by the next decade, the US would “for the first time . . . need to deter two major nuclear powers”, in reference to Russia and China.

Washington and its chief allies in Asia — Japan and South Korea — are also very concerned about North Korean leader Kim Jong Un continuing to test intercontinental ballistic missiles.

In recent months, the US has been on alert for the possibility that Pyongyang might conduct a seventh nuclear test this year. One US official said there had been “pretty much radio silence” from Pyongyang for the past two years.

“There are a series of countries that have been a problem for some time, which are all more problematic now,” said Lawrence Freedman, emeritus professor of war studies at King’s College London. “The west has to come to terms with the fact that their levers over these countries are more limited.”

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North Korea’s evolving nuclear threat: too great to deter?

He said it was less alarming that limits and checks, “much of which can be replaced with satellites”, were disappearing. Rather, Freedman added, what was of concern was “the loss of direct communication and dialogue . . . which appears impossible with Putin”.

Heather Williams, a nuclear expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think-tank, said the nuclear landscape was looking increasingly bleak, and that the lack of arms control would reduce transparency and predictability.

“We have lived in a world with nuclear weapons for nearly 80 years and . . . known since the Cuban missile crisis [in 1962] that arms control can play an important role,” she said. “We can use arms control as a toolkit to manage those risks, but the toolkit is now looking pretty empty.”

Housecarl · Feb 25, 2023

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U.S. And Taiwan Set To Exchange Hundreds Of Troops For Training

The training deployments would be among the largest ever between the U.S. and Taiwan and are driven by concerns over a Chinese invasion.

www.thedrive.com

The War Zone

U.S. And Taiwan Set To Exchange Hundreds Of Troops For Training

The training deployments would be among the largest ever between the U.S. and Taiwan and are driven by concerns over a Chinese invasion.
BY EMMA HELFRICH | PUBLISHED FEB 25, 2023 4:39 PM

A new report says the U.S. military is gearing up to more than quadruple the number of troops it has deployed to Taiwan in the coming months. At the same time, Taiwan is reportedly aiming to send around 500 of its own soldiers to the U.S. later this year, which would be a significant increase over its previous rotations. Both deployments would be focused on bolstering the training of Taiwan’s military and come at a time of increased friction between the U.S. and China.

A Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article revealed that the U.S. military in the coming months will be significantly increasing the number of troops it currently has stationed in Taiwan, which in the past has included special operations forces, like the Green Berets, and Marines. The WSJ states that the amount of American personnel currently planned to be deployed to Taiwan will be between 100 and 200.

The article went on to explain that the increase in U.S. troops will expand upon an ongoing training program for the ROC Armed Forces that the Pentagon has tried to keep under wraps to avoid provoking Beijing. “The planned increase would be the largest deployment of forces in decades by the U.S. on Taiwan, as the two draw closer to counter China’s growing military power,” the article stated.

The additional U.S. troops will help train the ROC Armed Forces on American weapon systems as well as familiarize them with U.S. military tactics and maneuvers. The officials speaking to WSJ didn’t provide many details beyond that, like where exactly in Taiwan the exercises will occur or whether personnel are going to be permanently deployed or sent solely for the duration of the training program.

If the U.S. troops are going to be deployed to Taiwan permanently, it would be a notable increase over the 39 American personnel stationed there as of September last year. The U.S. Defense Manpower Data Center detailed that this number included 23 active duty troops from all four branches of the military.

On the other side of the exchange, Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA), citing unnamed military experts and sources familiar with the matter, reported that the country’s Republic of China (ROC) Armed Forces are planning to send a combined arms battalion to the U.S. for training in the second half of this year.

“This marks the first time troops at battalion level, typically consisting of around 500 soldiers, will travel to the U.S. for training rather than platoon (25-60 troops) or company (80-150) level as in the past,” the CNA article read.

Also referred to as a joint battalion, the unit will reportedly be comprised of soldiers from the ROC Army’s 333rd Mechanized Infantry Brigade and 542nd Armor Brigade. While troops from these brigades will comprise the majority of the battalion, CNA explained that the teams will also consist of liaison officers from infantry, armor, Navy, Air Force, and Army aviation units along with special operators. In 2019, Taiwan began the process of restructuring its combined arms battalions in an effort to operate more independently in a fight, purportedly at the advisement of the U.S.

Even though the ROC Army neglected to confirm or deny the details of the reported deployment to the U.S. to CNA, the service did tell the outlet that “all military exchange programs with foreign countries are handled according to pre-determined plans.”

Specifically where in the U.S. the Taiwanese troops would train is also unclear. As WSJ notes, the Michigan National Guard is currently training a detachment of the ROC Armed Forces at Camp Grayling in the state’s northern region. Luke Air Force Base in Arizona is also known to host a training squadron of F-16 fighters from Taiwan.

Regardless of location, the training exchange comes as top U.S. military officials are becoming increasingly open about how China, which sees Taiwan as a rogue extension of the country, could potentially invade the island in the relatively near future. These predictions have additionally come with pushes to begin better preparing for this possibility through a number of means, be it increasing military training or ramping up weapons production.

Nikkei Asia, a financial news outlet based in Japan, last October reported that talks of joint weapons production between the two countries had begun, with the goal of either providing Taiwan with the technology needed to produce more arms locally or manufacturing the weapons in the U.S. using Taiwanese parts.

Taiwan is already a customer of U.S.-produced weapons systems like High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), guided M30 rockets, Stinger man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS), and Javelin anti-armor missiles. However, the military aid that the U.S. has been funneling into the war effort in Ukraine has slowed or outright halted delivery timelines of these weapons to Taiwan, prompting the proposed joint weapons production.

Much of the growing collaboration between the U.S. and Taiwan stems from the Taiwan Policy Act, which was overwhelmingly approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last September and seeks to encourage diplomatic relations between the two countries. The bill would allocate $6.5 million in foreign military assistance to Taiwan and supports the establishment of joint task forces and joint training programs with the U.S. to more comprehensively address the instability in the Indo-Pacific.

The legislation echoes calls for increasing open cooperation with Taiwan in an effort to better determine how the U.S. could best support the island's military. Historically, the U.S. government has had a somewhat ambiguous public policy in this respect, with the general understanding being that Washington still adheres to the ‘one China’ policy.

“To this day, the U.S. ‘one China’ position stands: the United States recognizes the [People’s Republic of China] as the sole legal government of China but only acknowledges the Chinese position that Taiwan is part of China,” read an article published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Thus, the United States maintains formal relations with the PRC and has unofficial relations with Taiwan.”

Debates on this stance have burgeoned in recent years, especially following multiple comments made by U.S. President Joe Biden insisting that Washington would get involved in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. White House members later walked his comments back, saying that the U.S. continues to stand behind the one China policy and won’t move away from it unless an official policy change is implemented.

Despite these contradictions, the sending of an increased number of U.S. troops to Taiwan would at the very least be an outward display of cooperation between the countries, which in itself is significant. While this could certainly draw the ire of China, achieving this level of diplomacy and military support is something that even Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen herself has vowed to do.

Relations between Taipei, Beijing, and Washington have been especially tense as of late due to a number of contributing factors. Whether it be territory disputes over Taiwan and the South China Sea, balloon incursions, or China’s own rapid fielding and heavy investment in high-end military technologies and weapon systems, the Pentagon says it is taking the necessary measures to avoid inflaming the situation further while ensuring Taiwan is capable of defending itself.

“One of the difficult things to determine is what really is objectionable to China,” a U.S. official told WSJ. “We don’t think at the levels that we’re engaged in and are likely to remain engaged in the near future that we are anywhere close to a tipping point for China, but that’s a question that is constantly being evaluated and looked at specifically with every decision involving support to Taiwan.”

An increased U.S. presence in Taiwan, paired with Taiwan’s own reportedly record-breaking deployment of its troops in exchange, underscores the expanding strategic partnership between the countries. How it may be interpreted by China remains to be seen, but it is clear that the U.S. intends to increase its military support of the island nation.

Contact the author: Emma@thewarzone.com

Housecarl · Feb 25, 2023

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ISIS Claims to Be Behind the Death of 70 Soldiers in Burkina Faso

loading… OUAGADOUGOU – Daesh group ( ISIS ) has claimed responsibility for killing more than 70 soldiers, injuring dozens and taking five hostage, in the ambush of a military convoy in Burkina Faso north. The statement, posted on Friday (24/2/2023) by Amaq, the group’s news agency, said it...

www.ruetir.com

ISIS Claims to Be Behind the Death of 70 Soldiers in Burkina Faso

by Ruetir
February 25, 2023
in World

OUAGADOUGOU – Daesh group ( ISIS ) has claimed responsibility for killing more than 70 soldiers, injuring dozens and taking five hostage, in the ambush of a military convoy in Burkina Faso north.

The statement, posted on Friday (24/2/2023) by Amaq, the group’s news agency, said it attacked a convoy trying to advance to areas it controlled near Deou, in Oudalan province in the Sahel.

Baca: Burkina Faso Gives French Troops One Month To Leave

It said it seized weapons and chased soldiers who retreated miles away into the desert.

Images released by the group showed 54 bodies in military uniforms lying on the ground covered in blood, as well as more than 50 seized assault rifles and pictures of five soldiers it said were being held captive.

The announcement came one week after the attack in Deou and days after another attack in the town of Tin-Akoff, in which local residents and civil society groups said dozens of soldiers and civilians were killed when a military post was attacked.

Baca: Armed Group in Burkina Faso Kidnaps 50 Village Women

It is unclear how many people died in the two incidents. Last week, the government confirmed that 51 soldiers died in the ambush on Deou, but has not responded to requests to update the numbers or comment on the attack on Tin-Akoff.

Violence linked to Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group has ravaged the country for seven years, killing thousands of people and displacing nearly 2 million.

Frustration over the government’s inability to contain the violence led to two coups last year, each preceded by massive attacks on the military.

Housecarl · Feb 25, 2023

Hummm.....

Posted for fair use.....(For image please go to article source. HC)

IDEX 2023: Sudan displays UAV-launched loitering munition

Sudan's Military Industry Corporation (MIC) unveiled Kamin-25, a loitering munition designed to be launched from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), during the IDEX 2023...

www.janes.com

IDEX 2023: Sudan displays UAV-launched loitering munition

24 FEBRUARY 2023
by Jeremy Binnie

The Kamin-25 displayed on the Sudanese stand at IDEX. (Janes/Jeremy Binnie)

Sudan's Military Industry Corporation (MIC) unveiled Kamin-25, a loitering munition designed to be launched from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), during the IDEX 2023 show being held in Abu Dhabi from 20 to 24 February.

Engineer Atif Mohamed al-Amin, MIC's manager in Abu Dhabi, told Janes the munition is being tested by the Sudanese Air Force on Z3-M UAVs, with final acceptance tests scheduled for May. He said two Kamin-25s can be carried by the Z3-M with their wings rotated 90° along their bodies until they are released.

The munition can carry either a 5 kg anti-tank warhead or a 7 kg anti-personnel warhead, Atif said, without clarifying which type accounts for the 25 kg total weight listed for the munition. Its batteries give it a flight duration of 45–60 minutes, depending on the altitude it is released, and it loiters at an altitude of 250 m. It can operate up to 50 km from the UAV, which relays the signal from the munition's day/night camera to the ground control station.

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Airborne weapon systems Air-to-surface missiles Sudan Weapons and ordnance

jward · Feb 26, 2023

China’s ‘phantom space strike’ made to spoof US defenses

Gabriel Honrada

Chinese engineers have developed and unveiled a new space-based spoofing system designed to deceive missile defense systems into launching limited interceptors against fake target signatures in space, according to a South China Morning Post report.

The report, which refers to the system as “phantom space strike”, says that a team from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Unit 63891 has conducted a computer simulation of a ballistic missile fired against a state-of-the-art missile defense system that carried three small satellites instead of a lethal warhead.
Upon reaching space, the ballistic missile released its satellite payload, which then generated spoofing signals to deceive the target’s missile defense radar, making the unarmed missile appear as a more serious threat than it is. The spoofing attack resulted in the missile defense system firing an interceptor missile at a non-existent target.
According to Zhao Yanli, a senior engineer with PLA Unit 63891, which develops and tests new technologies and equipment, his team exploited the weakness of missile defense radar and the advantages of satellite-based decoys.
Zhao’s team exploited the tolerable margin of error for missile defense satellites by keeping the positioning error between spoofing sources to less than half a meter.

The team also cited the cost advantages of using satellites, whose costs are lower than traditional electronic warfare aircraft and whose flight paths and speeds could be set according to intelligence about fixed missile defense sites. They also noted that the attack could be intensified by using more spoofing satellites.
However, a Beijing-based scientist not affiliated with Zhao’s team cautioned that phantom strike technology may lead to unintended nuclear retaliation and will most likely never be used against a nuclear-armed opponent.
With the unlikeliness of phantom strike technology being used against a nuclear-armed opponent such as the US, it may instead be used as a counter anti-satellite weapon system aimed at the secondary anti-satellite capabilities of the US Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD), the only missile defense system defending the US homeland against missile attacks.

In a 2008 paper by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Pavel Podvig and Hui Zhang note that some Chinese observers view the GMD as a space weaponry system, as the concept of space weapons in China includes not only space-based weapons but also any weapons that target objects in outer space, regardless of where they are based.
Podvig and Zhang note that China perceives that the US uses missile defense for space control, as it is easier to target satellites than missiles. According to them, any mid-course missile defense system, such as the GMD, can attack satellites in low and high Earth orbit.

They also note that tests have shown that the GMD’s anti-satellite capability may be more relevant than its ability to intercept missiles, making improvements to the system motivated by a push to acquire anti-satellite capabilities.
In line with that, Asia Times reported in August 2022 about the US Long-Range Discrimination Radar (LRDR), a significant upgrade of the GMD’s sensor component.
The LRDR is a two-in-one system combining low and high-frequency radars. Low-frequency radars have a wide field of view and can track multiple space objects but cannot discriminate threats from non-threats. High-frequency radars have a narrow field of view but can identify specific targets.
Such capability is crucial in defeating evolving ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missile threats, which may be volley-fired and equipped with penetration aids to defeat US missile defenses. The LRDR may also be used to identify military from civilian satellites.

Defense News reported in June 2022 that Northrop Grumman with Raytheon Technologies and Lockheed Martin with Aerojet Rocketdyne are competing to design a Next-Generation Interceptor (NGI) for the GMD system.
NGI’s mission is to protect the US against missile threats from rogue nations with a modern weapon system as an evolution of the currently deployed Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system. Credit: Lockheed Martin.
The report notes that current-generation GMD interceptors are not designed to destroy missiles with multiple warheads or decoys, with the NGI aiming to address the shortcoming. In addition, as with its GMD predecessor, the NGI will likely have improved secondary anti-satellite capabilities.
Asia Times has previously reported on China’s increasing arsenal of satellite-based military capabilities, such as satellite-mounted microwaves, AI-upgraded spy satellites and AI deception tactics for hunter satellites. China’s improving space-based, AI-powered satellite military capabilities can spur US anti-satellite measures to become more precise, destructive and harder to trace, increasing the chances of a US preemptive anti-satellite strike.

In July 2020, Business Insider reported that Russia tested a possible “nesting doll” space-based anti-satellite weapon. The report notes that the Russian satellite involved in the July 2020 test birthed a smaller satellite and that the smaller satellite ejected a projectile that Russia describes as an “inspector satellite.”
However, Stephen Kitay, former US deputy assistant secretary of defense for space policy, noted that the “inspector satellite” showed suspicious behavior.
Moreover, Asia Times noted in August 2022 that Russia’s nesting doll satellites could “hide” within space debris fields while collecting intelligence or even send out jamming and spoofing signals to confuse satellite navigation and missile guidance systems.

An August 2018 article by the Union of Concerned Scientists says that the fragility of missile defense systems is their greatest vulnerability, as a barrage of several missiles can overwhelm the system. The article also says that doubling the number of interceptor missiles would mean doubling the size of the system, which may have unfeasible costs.
The same weaknesses can carry over to their secondary anti-satellite capabilities. Limited US space target discrimination capabilities and interceptor missile stocks mean that decoys, spoofing signals and military satellites concealed among space debris and civilian satellites pose a severe challenge to its anti-satellite operations.

This situation may force the US to increasingly allocate the GMD for anti-satellite missions, which can detract from its original missile defense mission or impose unfeasible costs for system upgrades.
Thus, the strategic aim of China’s phantom strike tactics may be to detract US missile defense capabilities to anti-satellite missions or impose huge and unsustainable upgrade costs, thereby increasing US strategic vulnerability in an era of rising bilateral tensions.

China’s ‘phantom space strike’ made to spoof US defenses

jward · Feb 26, 2023

iranintl.com

CIA Chief Warns Of Tehran-Moscow Military Ties, Iran Nuclear

Iran International Newsroom

Russia is proposing to help Iran on its missile program, CIA Director William Burns told CBS Sunday, while Tehran’s uranium enrichment program is far advanced.
In an interview on Face the Nation, Burns told Margaret Brennan that Iran’s military ties with Russia is “moving at a pretty fast clip in a very dangerous direction right now…”

At the same time, he said despite Iran’s uranium enrichment program which has advanced far and can produce bomb material in a matter of weeks, the United States believes a decision to produce nuclear weapons has not been made yet.
Manufacturing a bomb can be a more secretive process in comparison with enrichment, which the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is somewhat monitoring inside the country. While the enrichment installations are being monitored, the bomb-making process can take place in a completely separate and secret location.

The United States believes that Iran stopped its nascent weaponization program in 2003 when news about its secret nuclear program became public and Western powers began exerting pressure on Tehran.
“To the best of our knowledge, we don't believe that the Supreme Leader in Iran has yet made a decision to resume the weaponization program that we judge that they suspended or stopped at the end of 2003,” Burns said during the interview.
Iran began breaching an enrichment limit imposed by the Obama era JCPOA accord after the Trump administration imposed full oil export sanctions in 2019. First, Tehran began enriching to 5 percent, beyond the agreement’s 3.67-percent limit, but when the Biden administration signaled its readiness to revive the deal, Iran announced enrichment to 20 percent in early 2021.

As negotiations were taking place in Vienna that year, Iran increased enrichment to 60 percent, which is very close to the 90-percent purity needed for nuclear weapons.
This month Bloomberg reported that IAEA inspectors found 84-percent enriched uranium particles in an Iranian nuclear facility. The UN watchdog has not denied the report, while Tehran has said that unintentional over-enrichment can sometimes happen in the fast-spinning centrifuges.
Burns also warned that the close military ties between Moscow and Tehran can pose a threat not only to Ukraine but also to regional countries. Iran has already provided hundreds of Kamikaze drones that Russia has used against Ukraine. Burns revealed that Iran has also provided Russia with ammunition for artillery and tanks.

“Russia is proposing to help the Iranians on their missile program and also at least considering the possibility of providing fighter aircraft to Iran as well,” the CIA director said.
Iran already has medium-range missiles that could be modified to carry nuclear warheads but any Russian assistance in this regard could be extremely dangerous for the region and possibly beyond.
Israel has vowed that it will not tolerate a nuclear Iran and is preparing to use military force if needed to neutralize its nuclear program.

US officials have also been increasingly signaling that President Joe Biden will not tolerate a nuclear Iran, after JCPOA talks hit a dead-end in September. "If they start getting too close, too close for comfort, then of course we will not be prepared to sit idly by," US Special Representative for Iran Robert Malley told National Public Radio in November.

CIA Chief Warns Of Tehran-Moscow Military Ties, Iran Nuclear

Russia is proposing to help Iran on its missile program, CIA Director William Burns told CBS Sunday, while Tehran’s uranium enrichment program is far advanced.

www.iranintl.com

jward · Feb 27, 2023

Lessons of Ukraine War: Rethinking America’s Footprint in Europe

by James Jay Carafano

Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine stands as the biggest shakeup in the transatlantic community since the fall of the wall. It has completely changed our world, and we must adapt.
Vladimir Putin is denuding his conventional military force. As a result, the future U.S. footprint in Europe should not be what it was in the past, nor does it need to be as robust as was once considered prudent. It is time to start talking about what the new face of the United States in Europe should look like.

Lord Palmerston, a ruthless and cunning old sot, zealously defended his empire without an ounce of empathy, political correctness, or scruples. Still, it’s hard to argue with his dictum: “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.” This kind of righteous, hard thinking was lost in the post-Cold War world. Instead of ensuring that politics ends at the water’s edge, modern U.S. foreign policy looks increasingly like an extension of domestic policy squabbles.

Indeed, Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, has said, “We’ve reached a point where foreign policy is domestic policy, and domestic policy is foreign policy.” That is nonsense. We need a third way that structures America’s actions and commitments to match our vital interests. This is nowhere more important than in America’s European footprint.

America’s Global Footprint
America is a global power with global interests and responsibilities. That is just a fact. But it is also true that we can’t protect all those interests and responsibilities without partnering with like-minded allies who carry their fair share of risks as well as rewards. This is confirmed by the Index of U.S. Military Strength, an objective assessment that finds our forces to be, at best, marginally suited to safeguard America’s global vital interests.

Europe, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific are the three regions most critical to U.S. prosperity and security. If all the world were a ballet stage, we could pivot from one region to another with ease. But “pivot” is an apt metaphor, because it reminds us that it would be easy for global adversaries to knock us off balance by threatening critical areas where our presence is inadequate. The United States should have sufficient capabilities in each theater to protect American vital interests there. What each regional footprint looks like should evolve over time, commensurate with the threat and allied contributions. Being responsible in how we allocate assets is also an important part of our national security. As Rep. Chip Roy and former National Security Council staff expert Victoria Coates note, a responsible use of resources makes for a stronger military.

The United States needs the right military, right now. We need to learn the lessons of the still ongoing war in Ukraine to think ahead to where we go from here.

America’s Future Footprint
The U.S. presence in Europe, along with material assistance from NATO allies, has enabled Ukraine to stiff-arm Russia in Ukraine. In the process, Putin has lost a mammoth amount of conventional military capability. He has also witnessed Europeans enhance their energy security by divesting from dependence on Russia.
Further, many Europeans have, with renewed vigor, committed to increasing their defense capabilities and equitably sharing defense burdens. Several NATO powers, like Poland, now not only exceed the 2 percent GDP defense spending target, but their percentage by GDP exceeds that of the United States. Some major European powers, notably Germany, continue to lag behind. But our staunchest allies are not only doing more for self-defense; they are more pro-U.S., pro-NATO, anti-Russia, and anti-China. These governments are also proving remarkably resilient, despite high inflation, energy concerns, and uncertainty over the war against Ukraine.

All these constructive outcomes occurred without U.S. “boots on the ground.” We did deploy some additional troops as trainers, for logistical support, and on some security assistance and training missions, but these are, by and large, temporary deployments—and, most importantly, there was no requirement for Americans to engage in combat.
This experience—paired with the fact, that 1) Russia’s conventional military threat to Europe has been greatly reduced, 2) it will take Russia years, at best, to rebuild this capability, and 3) Europeans are willing and, in fact, doing more to contribute to collective defense—suggests how the U.S. military footprint should evolve in the future.

Forces
Ground Forces. There ought to be only a limited need for U.S. combat forces in theater. The 173rd Airborne Brigade in Italy is primarily a rapid response for missions across Eurasia and the Greater Middle East. That makes sense. The United States should have some strategically placed rapid response forces. It’s like when you’re out of town and need money: it’s much better to be able to draw cash from a convenient ATM than to have to fly back to your hometown bank.
Washington ought to have two combat brigade equivalents in Europe for training and exercises with allies, as well as part of the forward-deployed deterrence in Central Europe. These can be rotational forces, but the presence, the footprint, should be persistent. In addition, a deployed corps headquarters that could provide the capacity to mobilize a larger conventional force, if needed, makes sense.

Russia may indeed rebuild its conventional forces over time, but then again, our expectations for Europe’s conventional forces will evolve as well. In the future, Washington can adjust as needed, particularly if the United States retains total Active, Reserve, and National Guard land force capability sufficient to meet the needs of theater commanders.
Air Forces. The Trump administration’s plan to rationalize and consolidate the U.S. footprint made sense. The Biden administration canceled that plan, but it deserves a relook.
Naval Forces. The United States has an important role to play in the Mediterranean, much of it centering on assisting allies in capacity building. Yet our efforts in the region are not commensurate with America’s interests. This does not mean a lot more ships. (We do need more ships, but we need them in the Indo-Pacific. For that, we will need to build a bigger Navy.) In Europe, the United States can accomplish a great deal more by pursuing security cooperation and a diplomatic approach that takes advantage of burden-sharing and joint action.

Presence
It is not so much what and how much the U.S. military has in many strategic places, but that the United States has presence, access, and the capacity to expand or contract as necessary. Greenland and Iceland are key to safeguarding the transatlantic bridge. Great Britain and Germany are crucial logistical, training, and support nodes. Poland is vital for forward presence. Many countries—Italy, Romania, Greece, Turkey, and, potentially, Georgia—offer essential basing and access options in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.
Moreover, small U.S. contingents, such as KFOR in the Balkans, can make an outside contribution to regional stability.

Enablers
One of the lessons of Russia’s war on Ukraine is that nations that demonstrate a capacity and unshakable commitment to self-defense are much more likely to attract external support from allies in times of crisis. Thus, many European nations are seeking enablers that will enhance their capacity to protect their own populations. These include intelligence sharing, surveillance, and targeting, air and missile defense, training, and technical cooperation.
An increasingly crucial enable will be extended nuclear deterrence. The Ukraine war reminds us how adverse nuclear-armed adversaries are to fight directly with each where there is a risk of escalation. As Russia’s conventional forces decline, its reliance on nuclear deterrence will increase. Further, China’s rapid expansion of its strategic forces is a major concern. The U.S. nuclear umbrella and missile defenses must be capable and robust.

Partnerships
America’s continued presence and engagement in Europe has empowered Europeans who are more pro-American and anti-Russian and anti-China, as well as governments that share concerns of many conservative Americans on domestic issues like life, education, family, religious liberty, and energy policies that are strengthening transatlantic bonds. Pivoting away from them would undermine the relationships, cooperation, and burden-sharing needed to make a smaller U.S. footprint in Europe both more durable and more effective. Strengthening partnerships ought to be a priority.
NATO remains foundational to collective security. NATO enlargement adds partners that better allow for sharing the burden. Sweden and Finland are great examples.

The United States can also enhance bilateral relations with countries that can deliver real benefits through burden sharing and partnership. Italy, Greece, Romania, and Poland are excellent examples. Italy, for instance, is the natural U.S. partner for leadership in the Greater Mediterranean region.
In addition, the United States should support collective efforts to expand security and economic cooperation in Northern, Central, and Southern Europe and across the Black Sea into the Caucuses and Central Asia.
Finally, the United States should continue to push reluctant allies, like Germany, to adapt our joint efforts to the realities of the new Europe.

This rethinking has implications for other regions as well. For instance, if America can work with the Arab nations and Israel in building out the Abraham Accords, the United States can have a similar collective security footprint in the Middle East.

Lessons of Ukraine War: Rethinking America’s Footprint in Europe

Washington needs a new approach that structures America’s actions and commitments to match its vital interests.

nationalinterest.org

Housecarl · Feb 27, 2023

jward said:
China’s ‘phantom space strike’ made to spoof US defenses

Gabriel Honrada

Chinese engineers have developed and unveiled a new space-based spoofing system designed to deceive missile defense systems into launching limited interceptors against fake target signatures in space, according to a South China Morning Post report.

The report, which refers to the system as “phantom space strike”, says that a team from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Unit 63891 has conducted a computer simulation of a ballistic missile fired against a state-of-the-art missile defense system that carried three small satellites instead of a lethal warhead.
Upon reaching space, the ballistic missile released its satellite payload, which then generated spoofing signals to deceive the target’s missile defense radar, making the unarmed missile appear as a more serious threat than it is. The spoofing attack resulted in the missile defense system firing an interceptor missile at a non-existent target.
According to Zhao Yanli, a senior engineer with PLA Unit 63891, which develops and tests new technologies and equipment, his team exploited the weakness of missile defense radar and the advantages of satellite-based decoys.
Zhao’s team exploited the tolerable margin of error for missile defense satellites by keeping the positioning error between spoofing sources to less than half a meter.

The team also cited the cost advantages of using satellites, whose costs are lower than traditional electronic warfare aircraft and whose flight paths and speeds could be set according to intelligence about fixed missile defense sites. They also noted that the attack could be intensified by using more spoofing satellites.
However, a Beijing-based scientist not affiliated with Zhao’s team cautioned that phantom strike technology may lead to unintended nuclear retaliation and will most likely never be used against a nuclear-armed opponent.
With the unlikeliness of phantom strike technology being used against a nuclear-armed opponent such as the US, it may instead be used as a counter anti-satellite weapon system aimed at the secondary anti-satellite capabilities of the US Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD), the only missile defense system defending the US homeland against missile attacks.

In a 2008 paper by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Pavel Podvig and Hui Zhang note that some Chinese observers view the GMD as a space weaponry system, as the concept of space weapons in China includes not only space-based weapons but also any weapons that target objects in outer space, regardless of where they are based.
Podvig and Zhang note that China perceives that the US uses missile defense for space control, as it is easier to target satellites than missiles. According to them, any mid-course missile defense system, such as the GMD, can attack satellites in low and high Earth orbit.

They also note that tests have shown that the GMD’s anti-satellite capability may be more relevant than its ability to intercept missiles, making improvements to the system motivated by a push to acquire anti-satellite capabilities.
In line with that, Asia Times reported in August 2022 about the US Long-Range Discrimination Radar (LRDR), a significant upgrade of the GMD’s sensor component.
The LRDR is a two-in-one system combining low and high-frequency radars. Low-frequency radars have a wide field of view and can track multiple space objects but cannot discriminate threats from non-threats. High-frequency radars have a narrow field of view but can identify specific targets.
Such capability is crucial in defeating evolving ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missile threats, which may be volley-fired and equipped with penetration aids to defeat US missile defenses. The LRDR may also be used to identify military from civilian satellites.

Defense News reported in June 2022 that Northrop Grumman with Raytheon Technologies and Lockheed Martin with Aerojet Rocketdyne are competing to design a Next-Generation Interceptor (NGI) for the GMD system.
NGI’s mission is to protect the US against missile threats from rogue nations with a modern weapon system as an evolution of the currently deployed Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system. Credit: Lockheed Martin.
The report notes that current-generation GMD interceptors are not designed to destroy missiles with multiple warheads or decoys, with the NGI aiming to address the shortcoming. In addition, as with its GMD predecessor, the NGI will likely have improved secondary anti-satellite capabilities.
Asia Times has previously reported on China’s increasing arsenal of satellite-based military capabilities, such as satellite-mounted microwaves, AI-upgraded spy satellites and AI deception tactics for hunter satellites. China’s improving space-based, AI-powered satellite military capabilities can spur US anti-satellite measures to become more precise, destructive and harder to trace, increasing the chances of a US preemptive anti-satellite strike.

In July 2020, Business Insider reported that Russia tested a possible “nesting doll” space-based anti-satellite weapon. The report notes that the Russian satellite involved in the July 2020 test birthed a smaller satellite and that the smaller satellite ejected a projectile that Russia describes as an “inspector satellite.”
However, Stephen Kitay, former US deputy assistant secretary of defense for space policy, noted that the “inspector satellite” showed suspicious behavior.
Moreover, Asia Times noted in August 2022 that Russia’s nesting doll satellites could “hide” within space debris fields while collecting intelligence or even send out jamming and spoofing signals to confuse satellite navigation and missile guidance systems.

An August 2018 article by the Union of Concerned Scientists says that the fragility of missile defense systems is their greatest vulnerability, as a barrage of several missiles can overwhelm the system. The article also says that doubling the number of interceptor missiles would mean doubling the size of the system, which may have unfeasible costs.
The same weaknesses can carry over to their secondary anti-satellite capabilities. Limited US space target discrimination capabilities and interceptor missile stocks mean that decoys, spoofing signals and military satellites concealed among space debris and civilian satellites pose a severe challenge to its anti-satellite operations.

This situation may force the US to increasingly allocate the GMD for anti-satellite missions, which can detract from its original missile defense mission or impose unfeasible costs for system upgrades.
Thus, the strategic aim of China’s phantom strike tactics may be to detract US missile defense capabilities to anti-satellite missions or impose huge and unsustainable upgrade costs, thereby increasing US strategic vulnerability in an era of rising bilateral tensions.

China’s ‘phantom space strike’ made to spoof US defenses

So it's to "launch on warning" and full up MAD and "other means" for the ASAT mission......they may not really want to go there.....

Housecarl · Feb 27, 2023

November Sierra......

Posted for fair use......

Watchdog report faults Pentagon for problems that led to 2021 collapse of Afghan security forces

American troops left behind $7.2 billion in aircraft, missiles, communications gear and other military equipment for the Taliban to potentially use.

www.usatoday.com

Watchdog report faults Pentagon for problems that led to 2021 collapse of Afghan security forces

Josh Meyer
USA TODAY

A new report by an independent U.S. watchdog agency says the Department of Defense contributed to the sudden collapse of the Afghan security forces in August 2021 partly due to poor planning and lack of accountability over at least some of the billions of dollars in weapons and equipment it provided.

The new report by SIGAR, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, also said the Pentagon did not cooperate fully with its investigation. And it disclosed that American troops left behind a total of $7.2 billion in aircraft, missiles, communications gear and other military equipment for the Taliban to potentially use.

That included at least 78 aircraft worth $923.3 million, 9,524 air-to-ground munitions valued at $6.54 million, over 40,000 vehicles, more than 300,000 weapons, and nearly all night vision, surveillance, communications, and biometric equipment provided to the ANDSF were left behind, SIGAR said, citing a March 2022 Pentagon report to Congress.

The report, mandated by Congress after the sudden fall of Kabul when US forces left the country, said the State Department was also unresponsive to some of its requests for information to help it figure out why the U.S.-funded Afghan military crumbled so quickly, allowing the Taliban to take over the country.

In their official responses, the Pentagon and State Department disputed at least some of the findings, and said they did cooperate with SIGAR's investigation.

A Department of Defense spokesman, Army Lt. Col. Rob Lodewick, told USA TODAY on Monday that the Pentagon was "obviously well aware of the report and its scope, and we contributed to it."

"We continually and historically contribute to and facilitate SIGAR’s work," Lodewick told USA TODAY, "and we will continue to do so moving forward for security and defense matters." He noted that SIGAR "echoes that in its opening pages."

More:How did Afghanistan end this way? The finger-pointing begins.

What were the report's key findings?

Since 2002, SIGAR said, the United States has allocated nearly $90 billion in security assistance to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), with the goal of developing an independent, self-sustaining force capable of combating both internal and external threats.

After the ANDSF collapse of 2021, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform and the House Armed Services Committee directed SIGAR to find out what happened, and to provide an accounting of all U.S.-provided equipment to Afghan forces.

In the new report, it provides numerous details of what it says were lapses in oversight, bad planning and other shortcomings on the part of the U.S. military.

Among those U.S. shortcomings:

The U.S. set the stage for the Afghanistan government collapse long before the August 2021 meltdown, by failing to create "an independent and self-sustainable ANDSF, despite 20 years and $90 billion of international support."
Due to the ANDSF’s dependency on U.S. military forces, the decision to withdraw all U.S. military personnel and dramatically reduce U.S. support to the ANDSF "destroyed the morale of Afghan soldiers and police." The U.S.-Taliban agreement signed under the Trump administration in 2020, especially, resulted in a sense of abandonment within the Afghan government and its military and police forces, which "set in motion a series of events crucial to understanding" the country's collapse.
Even though air strikes had proven to be perhaps the most "critical force multiplier" in fighting the Taliban, the 2020 withdrawal agreement limited them, which "left the ANDSF without a key advantage in keeping the Taliban at bay."
The U.S. also decided to withdraw on-site contract maintenance from Afghanistan in May 2021, which reduced the availability of aircraft needed to move stockpiles of U.S.-provided weapons and supplies around the country. As a result, Afghan defense and security units, "complained that they lacked enough ammunition, food, water, and other military equipment to sustain military engagements against the Taliban."

More:'Nobody should be surprised': Why Afghan security forces crumbled so quickly to the Taliban

Did the US military refuse to cooperate fully with the SIGAR?

SIGAR says so. In the report, it notes that the report is the final version of a major interim report issued last May, which that was extremely critical of the Pentagon on a number of fronts when it came to its performance in Afghanistan over the course of the nearly 20-year war there. That report noted that the U.S. military left behind a vast amount of equipment when it cleared out of Afghanistan, potentially giving the Taliban a weapons windfall to use."The Department of Defense (DOD) and Department of State declined to review that interim draft, denied us access to their staff, and mostly declined to answer requests for information," the new report says. "This limited SIGAR’s ability to perform this evaluation."

More:Fact check: US expenditure for the Afghanistan War surpasses aid given to Ukraine

Still, investigators said, "this final version includes additional information that we received from U.S. and former Afghan officials over the past eight months without support from U.S. agencies," including quotes from U.S. and Afghan interviewees who witnessed the collapse of the ANDSF.

The watchdog organization also said it offered DoD, State, and USAID the opportunity to review and comment on the final report.

"USAID had no comments. State deferred to DOD for comments. In comments to SIGAR, DOD noted that the report has 'important insights' but also disputed certain conclusions."

On Monday, a Defense official also took exception to SIGAR's accusations, saying DoD did review the interim report back in May and that it "opened its files" to the report's author and offered him full access to its staff. "He came over once, and we never saw him again," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the report.

"We were kind of surprised that SIGAR pointed such a heavy finger at us," the official told USA TODAY. "SIGAR asked us for comment on the interim report in May and we expressed our intent to provide formal comment for the final report, which we did. We just didn’t do it on their timeline for a draft report."

In its report, SIGAR said it "strongly disagrees with DOD’s characterization of their engagement on this report," saying it only provided limited responses to SIGAR’s request for information "and missed every deadline

for responding to SIGAR’s questions or for providing feedback to vetting drafts of this report."

Who else did SIGAR blame besides the US?

The SIGAR report, as with some of its previous findings, found plenty of blame to spread around.

Much of that criticism was directed at the Kabul government. SIGAR said the Afghan government "failed to develop a national security strategy," especially following the withdrawal of U.S. forces. Instead, it said, former President Ashraf Ghani frequently changed defense and security force leaders and appointed loyalists who politicized the ANSDF. These actions, and constant turnover, weakened chains of command, morale, and trust in the ANDSF, it said.

More:ISIS is regrouping and expanding despite the death of its leader in US raid, experts say

SIGAR also found that no one country or agency had ownership of the ANDSF development mission over the years. As a result, the NATO-led coalition and temporary organizations like the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), ended up being staffed "with a constantly changing rotation of military and civilian advisors" that impeded continuity and institutional memory.

Advisors were often poorly trained and inexperienced for their mission as well, according to SIGAR. These shortcomings, it said, "undermined the U.S. government’s ability to build relationships with and capacity among Afghan forces."

Housecarl · Feb 27, 2023

Posted for fair use.....

US requests extradition of El Chapo’s son, Mexico says

The United States has asked Mexico to extradite a powerful son of jailed druglord Joaquin Guzman, better known as El

dnyuz.com

US requests extradition of El Chapo’s son, Mexico says

February 27, 2023
in News

The United States has asked Mexico to extradite a powerful son of jailed druglord Joaquin Guzman, better known as El Chapo, who is accused of drugs crimes, a Mexican government spokesperson has said.

Ovidio Guzman, captured in January, has allegedly helped to run the infamous Sinaloa cartel since his father was handed over to authorities in the US in 2017.

The US embassy in Mexico City presented the extradition request to the foreign ministry and attorney general’s office, the spokesperson told the AFP news agency. He did not want to be named because he was not authorised to speak on the issue.

Two unnamed Mexican government sources also confirmed the extradition request for 32-year-old Ovidio Guzman to the Reuters news agency.

The younger Guzman was captured near the city of Culiacan, in northern Sinaloa state, triggering a wave of violence that left dozens of people dead.

El Chapo, who based his smuggling empire out of Sinaloa, is serving a life sentence in the US for drug trafficking over a period of 25 years.

Ovidio Guzman secured a court order in January blocking his immediate extradition to the US, and a judge gave the US until March 5 to present an extradition request.

He is accused of helping to oversee nearly a dozen methamphetamine labs in Sinaloa as well as conspiring to distribute cocaine and marijuana, according to US authorities.

He also allegedly ordered the murders of informants, a drug trafficker and a Mexican singer who refused to perform at his wedding.

He was captured briefly once before in 2019, but security forces freed him after his cartel waged an all-out war in response.

The post US requests extradition of El Chapo’s son, Mexico says appeared first on Al Jazeera.

Housecarl · Feb 27, 2023

Posted for fair use.....

Mexican soldiers kill five in border town, sparking protests

A report indicates members of the Mexican army opened fire on a pick-up truck in city of Nuevo Laredo, near US border.

www.aljazeera.com

Mexican soldiers kill five in border town, sparking protests

A report indicates members of the Mexican army opened fire on a pick-up truck in city of Nuevo Laredo, near US border.

27 Feb 2023

A shooting by Mexican army soldiers has left five people dead in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, igniting a clash between the soldiers and residents who came to the scene to protest.

The soldiers were investigating gunshots from the area and opened fire on a pick-up truck early Sunday after it failed to obey their orders to stop, according to a state crime scene report obtained on Monday by The Associated Press.

KEEP READING

list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3

Mexico: 29 people dead in operation to arrest son of ‘El Chapo’

list 2 of 3

Why are so many journalists being killed in Mexico?

list 3 of 3

‘I was a prisoner of Mexico’s US-backed migrant detention regime’

end of list
The report said five bodies were found in or near the bullet-riddled truck in Nuevo Laredo, which is opposite Laredo, Texas.

The incident provoked a scuffle between soldiers and a large group of angry residents who believed the “victims were not armed and that there was no reason to arbitrarily kill them in this way”, the group Human Rights Committee of Nuevo Laredo said in a statement.

Videos of the incident posted on social media show residents scuffling with soldiers on a street near the bullet-ridden pick-up truck, with civilians throwing punches, knocking one soldier to the ground and repeatedly kicking him. Gunfire can be heard towards the end of that incident, sending people running, but it is not clear who fired the shots.

View: https://youtu.be/8i4vt-LkEx4

In a video statement, rights committee activist Raymundo Ramos claimed the soldiers fired at the crowd but had no immediate information about any additional casualties. He also said the dead youths had been returning from a night out at a club when they were killed.

The state crime scene report said a Texas-issued identification document was found on one of the dead bodies. The United States Embassy could not immediately confirm whether any US citizens or residents were involved.

The report said three of the bodies were found in the pick-up truck and two on the sidewalk nearby. Such reports usually note any weapons found at a crime scene, but no mention was made of any in this case.

Nuevo Laredo is dominated by the violent Northeast drug cartel, an offshoot of the old Zetas cartel. Soldiers and marines have frequently come under fire from heavily armed cartel gunmen in Nuevo Laredo.

View: https://youtu.be/eRkNMbdk9Ww

The city has also been the scene of human rights violations by the military in the past.

In 2021, Mexico’s navy said it turned 30 marines over to civilian prosecutors to face justice in the cases of people who disappeared during anticrime operations in Nuevo Laredo in 2014.

Marines were also accused of rounding up supposed suspects, some of whom were not heard from again. Through 2018, dozens of people disappeared in Nuevo Laredo.

Under Mexican law, military tribunals can hear only cases that involve violations of the military code. Offences against civilians must be tried in civilian courts.

SOURCE: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

jward · Feb 28, 2023

Don't normally post tweets or random domestic crime here, but the borderless south is where our most important war should be, (but isn't) being fought- and these hauls are some, but not all, o' the weapons being used.

Then there are the cartel orgs entrenched on this side o' the now nonexistent border, and the battalions worth o' military aged males that pour across it-

Bill Melugin
@BillFOXLA

NEW: Border Patrol reports making an enormous fentanyl bust in SoCal - 232 lbs smuggled in a vehicle, enough lethal doses to kill 50 million people. BP sources tell me the bust took place during a traffic stop on a highway in San Clemente in Orange County, 75 miles inland from border. This highlights the fact this fentanyl had already made it into the U.S. either via a missed vehicle at a CBP port of entry, or by being backpacked into the U.S. by drug mules, then smuggled further by vehicle.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1630381953534038017

View: https://twitter.com/BillFOXLA/status/1630381953534038017?s=20

Photo courtesy: @USBPChief

Comments from US Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1630381953534038017

View: https://twitter.com/BillFOXLA/status/1630381953534038017?s=20

This is the third major fentanyl bust Border Patrol has reported making between ports of entry in the last two weeks. Agents seized 93 lbs of fentanyl in a bag a smuggler was carrying in Yuma, AZ sector, and 24 lbs of fentanyl carried by a group of smugglers in remote desert east of Nogales, AZ.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1630384723670495234

View: https://twitter.com/BillFOXLA/status/1630384723670495234?s=20

Mark Mendlovitz
@MendlovitzMark
2h
Replying to @BillFOXLA
Care to explain, @NickMiroff?

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1630420342954139650

View: https://twitter.com/MendlovitzMark/status/1630420342954139650?s=20

Housecarl · Feb 28, 2023

This was posted on their channel two weeks ago but IMHO it covers and connects a lot of points in relation to the titled subject....HC

Peter Zeihan's Shocking Predictions on China, Russia and the Ukraine war.

RT 1:25:48

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdmYkcRGemk

269,643 views Feb 8, 2023 #Peterzeihan #Zeihan #Ukrainewar
Join us as world-renowned Geopolitical Strategist Peter Zeihan takes the stage in Shreveport for BRF's 2023 Annual Event! Peter will provide unique insights and perspectives on the strengths of Northwest Louisiana in the rapidly changing economy of the future. Don't miss this opportunity to hear from one of the top minds in the industry and gain valuable knowledge on the future of the global economy. 841 Comments

Housecarl · Mar 2, 2023

Why Russia's Biggest Threat is Actually China

RT 36:20

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iibs7buNwxQ&ab_channel=RealLifeLore

1,520,550 views Feb 28, 2023

6,640 Comments

Housecarl · Mar 2, 2023

Hummm......

Posted for fair use.....

Biden Admin Wants Allies to Keep Quiet as Iran Comes Closer Than Ever to Nuclear Capability - The Stream

The Biden administration is against European allies’ wishes to condemn Iran for enriching uranium to 84%, just shy of the level considered nuclear bomb-worthy, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing diplomats involved in the discussions.

stream.org

Biden Admin Wants Allies to Keep Quiet as Iran Comes Closer Than Ever to Nuclear Capability

By MICAELA BURROW Published on March 2, 2023

The Biden administration is against European allies’ wishes to condemn Iran for enriching uranium to 84%, just shy of the level considered nuclear bomb-worthy, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing diplomats involved in the discussions.

The United Kingdom, France and Germany support censuring Iran, as European diplomats fear that Tehran breaking the nuclear weapons threshold could trigger the official end of the 2015 nuclear deal, according to the WSJ. However, Iran said the highly-enriched particles were produced unintentionally, and the Biden State Department wants to wait until an international watchdog organization concludes an investigation.

The U.S. is “going to continue to consult very closely with our partners to do what we believe will be most effective,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said at a briefing Wednesday, according to the WSJ.

Some European diplomats accused Washington of failing to take a firm stance as negotiations aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear deal sputtered to a standstill, the WSJ reported. The Biden administration is reluctant to ramp up consequences for Iran’s nuclear buildup, but at the same time unwilling to make the political and diplomatic concessions necessary to revive the pact, the diplomats said.

European countries want to pass a resolution condemning Iran’s nuclear development at an IAEA board of governors meeting next week, the WSJ reported. However, they are are unlikely to take official action without U.S. backing.

U.S. diplomats noted that America supported a historic resolution in November to censure Iran, according to the WSJ.

The IAEA is continuing discussions with Iran over what precipitated production of 84% enriched uranium, according to the WSJ. In addition, officials close to the organization could not discredit with certainty Iran’s claims the materials were accidentally enriched at near nuclear-capable levels, they told the outlet.

Please Support The Stream: Equipping Christians to Think Clearly About the Political, Economic, and Moral Issues of Our Day.
The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that Director General Rafael Grossi will travel to Tehran on Thursday for “high level meetings” with Iranian officials.

A portion of the report detailing the never-before-seen levels of uranium enrichment leaked to the media in the days prior. European officials called the report, which was later officially released by the IAEA, “an unprecedented and extremely grave development,” according to the WSJ.

The report also found that Iran is not stockpiling the 84% enriched nuclear material, although it continues to enrich uranium to 60% — a level still considered dangerous and unnecessary — at its Fordow nuclear plant.
Iran could generate large enough quantities of fissile material to construct a nuclear bomb in about 12 days, a top U.S. Department of Defense official told Congress on Tuesday, Reuters reported.

“I think there is still the view that if you could resolve this issue diplomatically and put constraints back on their nuclear program, it is better than the other options. But right now, the JCPOA is on ice,” Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl said, referring to the nuclear agreement former President Donald Trump slashed in 2018, according to Reuters.

Housecarl · Mar 2, 2023

November Sierra......

Posted for fair use.....

Alarm raised over NATO airpower weaknesses: 'Real threats were ignored'

NATO air forces have been allowed to "atrophy" since the Cold War ended, according to a new think tank report.

www.newsweek.com

Alarm Raised Over NATO Airpower Weaknesses: 'Real Threats Were Ignored'

BY ELLIE COOK ON 2/27/23 AT 5:00 AM EST

The NATO defense community has known about shortcomings in its European air forces for years, according to military experts, as a report warned that "urgent" changes are needed in the face of aggression from Moscow and Beijing.

On February 22 a report released by the London-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank, which specializes in military and defense analysis, suggested that "almost all European air forces" did not have many of the "critical capabilities" to win out against Russian forces in the air.

"Almost all European air forces, including the RAF [British Royal Air Force], currently lack many of the critical capabilities required to credibly be able to gain and exploit air superiority against Russian forces, or indeed any state opponent with modern ground-based air defence systems and long-range strike capabilities," the report's author Professor Justin Bronk wrote.

A F-16 Fighting Falcon from the Polish Air Force takes part in a NATO air Shielding exercise at the Lask Air Base on October 12, 2022 in Lask, Poland. "Urgent" changes need to be made to European NATO air forces to keep apace with the threat posed by Russia, according to a new report.OMAR MARQUES/GETTY IMAGES
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"European NATO members must urgently regenerate the warfighting credibility
of their armed forces," the report argued.

Airpower is "where the bulk of NATO's conventional firepower and lethality" is, according to the report, and maintaining that is key to deterring Russian forces from attacks on NATO states.

NATO air forces have been allowed to "atrophy" over the last three decades, Bronk wrote. The detailed analysis looked at several aspects of NATO's European air forces, including vulnerable air bases, lack of maintenance and training, and having enough munitions to destroy enemy air defenses.

Jens Stoltenberg, the alliance's Secretary-General, said on February 17 that NATO must "continue to invest in our security" adding that a win for Russia in Ukraine would be "dangerous" for NATO states.

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Mystery surrounds Russian plane reportedly blown up in Belarus
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"Putin's invasion demonstrates the West can no longer afford to be complacent about defence," retired Vice-Air Marshall Sean Bell wrote for Britain's Sky News on Saturday. An easing of defense spending at the end of the Cold War "has left significant gaps in our collective military capability," he added.

But although the RUSI report may be new the information about waning NATO airpower capabilities is not, military experts have told Newsweek.

The report is hardly surprising, former British military officer Frank Ledwidge commented. Air power has been "focused on irrelevant threats" meaning the "real threats to our security were ignored," he said.

He suggested to Newsweek that the "war on terror" had drained NATO airpower resources, and Bronk also argued NATO air forces in Europe "must reduce discretionary commitments such as counterterrorism."

"Unfortunately, it doesn't surprise me at all," retired Air Commodore Andrew Curtis, of Britain's Royal Air Force, told Newsweek. "This isn't a surprise. This is stuff that people have known about for a while."

But Britain's air force and the military in general have been "really pressured," Curtis said. Funds are unlikely to spread across all aspects of spending that could be deemed necessary, from the number of aircraft, to hardening shelters or increasing aircraft survivability, he said. Priorities have changed as circumstances evolved, he added.

"At the end of the day, it's all about priorities, because there's never enough money to go around."

The RUSI report also warned that NATO's European forces need to be prepared for U.S. forces to be distracted by China. "The Chinese military threat means fewer U.S. military assets are available to reinforce Europe in a crisis," Bronk wrote, meaning Russia could make the most of U.S. forces being occupied in the Indo-Pacific to target NATO members in Europe.

This is "absolutely" a possibility, Ledwidge said. China is "where the U.S.'s decisions are focused," Curtis added.

"Certainly, anything that Russia does that takes the U.S.'s focus away from the Chinese military build up, China will be happy with," Curtis argued. "But in the same way anything that reduces Russian military capability, so that the U.S. can concentrate more on China, is helpful to the U.S."

"We know that Beijing is watching closely the war in Ukraine," Stoltenberg said earlier this month.

"If President Putin wins there, it will impact the calculations and decisions they will make in Beijing," he continued. "So when authoritarian powers are coming closer, working more closely together, it's even more important that all of us that believe in democracy and freedom, that we stand together in NATO and with our partners throughout the world."

Newsweek has contacted NATO and Britain's defense ministry for comment.

READ MORE

Housecarl · Mar 2, 2023

Hummm......I can see this biting us again like it has the last 3 times....

Posted for fair use.....

Marine Corps Axes Elite Scout Sniper Platoons

The Marine Corps is eliminating the scout sniper program as part of the service's big Force Design 2030 overhaul.

www.military.com

Marine Corps Axes Elite Scout Sniper Platoons

27 Feb 2023
Military.com | By Kelsey Baker

The Marine Corps is getting rid of one of its most elite and storied jobs -- the scout sniper.

Official message traffic leaked to social media last week described a switch from scout sniper platoons to what will only be known only as "scout platoons."

The change is part of Force Design 2030 (FD2030), the Marine Corps' ongoing and controversial effort to reinvent the service for future warfare. The decision has already triggered concerns from within the ranks about the loss of sniper capabilities.

Read Next: Army Urges Soldiers to Check Their Records in New HR System After String of Glitches

All three training locations for the grueling 3-month Scout Sniper course at Camp Pendleton, California; Camp Lejeune, North Carolina; and Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, will stop admitting new students starting in fiscal 2024, according to the message.

A spokesman for the Marine Corps confirmed that the scout sniper platoons would be eliminated, but said that the underlying skill set would be integrated elsewhere in the service.

"Precision rifle capability will remain within the infantry company, and the Marine Corps will continue to maintain school-trained snipers within Marine Reconnaissance and Marine Special Operations units," said service spokesman Capt. Ryan Bruce.

Bruce added that the Marine Corps' Training Command "is in the process of analyzing both the new scout platoon mission and enduring requirements for precision marksmanship capabilities to determine the performance standards and training options necessary."

Snipers are qualified to venture 10 to 20 miles beyond the forward line of troops, into the enemy's domain. Reconnaissance skills, like days-long observation of enemy outposts, are tough to maintain, as is the ability to shoot long distances with different sophisticated rifle systems. They're trained in how to call for fire and close-air support, and have to understand complex mission planning requirements.

The messages outlining the changes, posted to social media, described the move as being driven by the two-year-long "Infantry Battalion Experimentation" the Corps undertook, which "showed the scouting capabilities in the newly designed Infantry Companies were insufficient to offer the Battalion continuous all-weather information gathering."

Unlike tanks and select artillery capabilities, which were publicly put on the chopping block early during the force design rethink, the Marine Corps has remained mostly quiet on the future of snipers until now.

The new "scout platoons" will consist of 26 Marines. Infantry companies will no longer have Marines trained as snipers, but they will keep "designated marksmen."

It's not the first time the Corps has dropped the scout snipers.

The Marine Corps previously canned the program after World War I, World War II and Vietnam, anticipating that future warfare wouldn't require snipers.

Scout snipers are a storied part of Marine Corps history.

During WWII, scout snipers known as the "40 Thieves on Saipan" operated far behind enemy lines and grew famous for their silent killing techniques. And before "American Sniper," there was Carlos Hathcock, a Vietnam War Marine with 93 confirmed kills (and up to 300 unconfirmed kills), and Chuck Mawhinney, another Vietnam sniper with more than 100 confirmed kills.

The Marine Corps' commandant, Gen. David Berger, has been vocal about wanting infantry Marines to become well-versed in multiple weapons systems -- less specialized and more "commando-like."

But some Marines, who spoke with Military.com about the service's decision to eliminate scout snipers on condition of anonymity, say that kind of mindset highlights a misunderstanding of the extreme capabilities snipers provide and the importance of their uncompromising training.

"We're talking out of both sides of our mouth here," said one Marine gunner, a weapons expert. "We don't want to divest the equipment because we know we need that capability," he said, pointing out that tough-to-master sniper rifles aren't going anywhere.

"You just can't pick up an advanced sniper rifle and hand it to somebody and expect them to be able to do what a trained sniper can do," the Marine added.

Instead, the Corps will rely on training up Marines through the two-week-long Designated Marksman course.

It's unclear how "scout platoons" will be trained, as there is currently no stand-alone "scouting" course within the Marine Corps.

Scout snipers have faced a serious shortage of numbers in recent years, which some say is due in part to a too-high attrition rate from the scout sniper schoolhouses. Fewer Marines finishing the course means fewer snipers overall.

Others see it differently.

"Part of this is a retention problem," said a Marine officer who's involved with current scout sniper training efforts. The Marine said that, because being a sniper is a secondary responsibility, it gets short shrift from higher-ups.

"A lot of them want to keep doing their jobs as snipers," the Marine added. "So they get out, and they go to the SEALs, Army Special Forces or MARSOC. I've seen it happen multiple times. They don't want to stay because they're not valued properly."

Previous reporting suggests there may be anywhere from 150 to 300 scout snipers in the Marine Corps. Save for snipers produced through stand-alone courses with Reconnaissance and MARSOC units, numbers will likely plummet, given the closing of the sniper schools.

In 2018, then-Commandant Gen. Robert Neller sought to increase scout snipers' numbers, amidst the shortage. The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory reportedly recommended an increase in sniper platoon numbers around the same time.

While snipers are set to remain at MARSOC and Recon, Marines point out that MARSOC snipers are likely to be under the purview of their Special Operations Command structure, and aren't likely to be easily dispersed throughout the service. And while Recon will maintain snipers, their small numbers and specialized, high-level missions leave the majority of Marine infantry units out in the cold.

"I think a lot of senior commanders don't really understand the full capability that a sniper brings to them," lamented a senior enlisted sniper.

"Snipers can't be mass-produced," he continued. "They're trying to mass-produce capabilities and cutting corners, thinking that numbers on a spreadsheet is what will win wars. But it's not; all it's going to do is fill body bags."

-- Kelsey Baker is a freelance journalist and former active-duty Marine. She can be reached at bakerkelsey@protonmail.com.

Related: Can Congress Save the Marine Corps from Itself?

Housecarl · Mar 2, 2023

Hummm.......

Posted for fair use.....

China Sees Balloon-Launched Drone Swarms In Its Future

Researchers in China and elsewhere have demonstrated that high-altitude balloons can launch drones and the military applications are glaring.

www.thedrive.com

China Sees Balloon-Launched Drone Swarms In Its Future

Researchers in China and elsewhere have demonstrated that high-altitude balloons can launch drones and the military applications are glaring.

BY JOSEPH TREVITHICK | PUBLISHED MAR 2, 2023 3:45 PM
THE WAR ZONE

https://www.thedrive.com/uploads/2023/03/02/China-drone-balloon.jpg?auto=webp&crop=16%3A9&auto=webp&optimize=high&quality=70&width=1200

A string of shootdowns of high-flying aerial objects over the United States and Canada last month has called new attention to the value of balloons for intelligence-gathering and other military purposes. This also includes acting as launch platforms for drones, potentially in large numbers, that could be then operated as networked swarms. The ability to deploy uncrewed aircraft from high-altitude balloons is real and is something that researchers around the world, including in China, have been publicly experimenting with for years now.

The idea of balloons as tools for intelligence agencies and military forces was thrust back into the public eye at the beginning of February after the U.S. government announced that it had been tracking what it assessed to be a Chinese spy balloon inside U.S. and Canadian airspace. That balloon was subsequently shot down on February 4 and efforts to retrieve the wreckage for further analysis have wrapped up.

View: https://youtu.be/U6G1rCj3zac

This was followed by shootdowns of three more still-unidentified objects over U.S. territorial waters off the northeastern coast of Alaska, Canada's Yukon territory, and Lake Huron, on February 10, 11, and 12, respectively. American officials say they increasingly believe those objects, significant remains of which have not been recovered and may never be, were benign, although they have presented no evidence to support these claims. However, this underscores the complex nature of the potential threat that high-altitude balloons, as well as other uncrewed platforms, present. Last month, President Joe Biden pledged significant changes to how the U.S. government responds to these sorts of incidents and to how these objects will be allowed to operate in U.S. airspace.

An old technology made new again
For years, The War Zone has been calling attention to the utility of balloons, airships, and other lighter-than-air craft to modern military forces for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions – something that is really not new – among other things. The Chinese government's interest in these kinds of capabilities is well established, as you can read about more in this past feature of ours.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1574849104077017088

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Beyond ISR, there have been multiple documented instances in China of balloons and other lighter-than-air craft being used to launch various things, such as test articles in support of work on unpowered hypersonic boost-glide vehicle designs. You can read all about this revelation here. This also includes using high-altitude balloons to deploy uncrewed aircraft ostensibly as part of scientific research efforts.

Chinese hypersonic boost-glide vehicle bodies being tested aboard a high-altitude balloon. Chinese media screencap

Launching drones from high-altitude balloons
At least two uncrewed aircraft, which appear to have been unpowered glider-like designs, were launched from a stratospheric balloon during testing in China's Inner Mongolia region in September 2017. One was deployed at an altitude of approximately 25 kilometers (nearly 82,021 feet), while the other was released from a high of around nine kilometers (some 29,527.5 feet), according to a subsequent story from the South China Morning Post (SCMP) newspaper in Hong Kong. Subsequent information from other Chinese sources says the releases were actually from 10 and 20 kilometers, or just over 32,808 and nearly 65,617 feet, respectively.

An annotated image of one of the balloons used in the high-altitude drone release tests over Inner Mongolia in 2017. An inset shows the payload gondola with the launchers and other systems. Chinese Academy of Sciences via International Journal of Micro Air Vehicles

The 2017 SCMP story described the drones as being made primarily from composite materials. It further said that they were "about the size of a bat" and "small enough to fit in a shoebox and weigh about the same as a soccer ball." They appeared to use printed circuit boards (PCB) for their core construction based on the images available

A low-resolution screen capture showing one of the drones tested in 2017 over Inner Mongolia. It appears to be an unpowered design made primarily from a printed circuit board. Chinese Academy of Sciences via International Journal of Micro Air Vehicles

"The drones then glided towards their targets... adjusting course and altitude in flight without human intervention," according to SCMP. "On-board sensors," including "a terrain mapping device and electromagnetic signal detector," then "beamed data back to a ground station."

"The drones would not carry cameras... as the transmission of photo or video data over long distances requires bulky antenna unsuitable for near space launches," according to the piece.

SCMP also interestingly reported that the bat-sized drones were launched via an electromagnetic accelerator of some kind to get them up to a speed of around 100 kilometers per hour (just over 62 miles per hour) "within a space about the length of an arm." This method was apparently chosen due to concerns about employing systems utilizing electric initiation in the near-vacuum-like conditions in the upper stratosphere.

A series of screen captures from videos of the two drone launches over Inner Mongolia in 2017. The top and bottom rows show the releases from altitudes between nine and 10 kilometers and 20 and 25 kilometers, respectively. Chinese Academy of Sciences via International Journal of Micro Air Vehicles

“One of the biggest headaches is the near-vacuum environment, where electric currents can produce a spark," Yang Chunxin, a professor at the School of Aeronautic Science and Engineering at Beihang University in Beijing, told SCMP at the time. "This can lead to shortages and damage electronic equipment."

The balloon that carried the drones aloft, seen in the picture below, had an envelope with a total volume of around 7,000 cubic meters (close to 247,203 cubic feet), a maximum payload capacity of 150 kilograms (nearly 331 pounds), and stayed aloft for eight hours in total, according to a release from China's Aerospace Information Research Institute, which is part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The Academy of Optoelectronics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing was principally responsible for the design of the balloon and the drones.

Chinese Academy of Sciences

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences cited those tests in Inner Mongolia, among others, in an academic paper in 2020 that proposed an evolution of this general concept. A heavy focus of that research was on developing a very low-cost "micro glider" that could "be launched from a super pressure balloon at high altitude, glide to the target position to collect data and upload data to the staying balloon."

Continued.....

Housecarl · Mar 2, 2023

Continued.....

Like the ones tested in 2017, the proposed glider would be fabricated primarily from a PCB. It would be fitted with a limited number of unspecified sensors, as well as other systems, including a GPS receiver and an inertial measurement unit (IMU) for navigation purposes. It's not immediately clear how many examples of this design may have been fabricated and if they were flight tested in any context.

Renderings of the proposed micro glider drone design for release from a balloon from the 2020 academic paper from the researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Chinese Academy of Sciences via International Journal of Micro Air Vehicles

Pictures of an actual physical prototype of the glider design. Chinese Academy of Sciences via International Journal of Micro Air Vehicles

Interest in and work on concepts for launching drones from balloons and other lighter-than-air craft is, of course, not limited to Chinese academic institutions. In the introduction to their 2020 academic paper, the researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences specifically cited prior demonstrations of similar capabilities by teams in the United States, Germany, and Switzerland dating back to 2011. The use of balloon-launched drones in all of these instances was in support of weather and other scientific research experiments.

The designs cited in the paper include ones that are significantly bigger and otherwise more capable in terms of performance and payload than the Chinese PCB-based drones. A prime example of this is HiDRON, a balloon-deployed unpowered high-altitude glider-type drone developed jointly by U.S.-based company UAVOS, Inc. and a firm headquartered in Canada called Stratodynamics.

HiDRON was first flight tested in 2018 and is designed to be recoverable via parachute at the end of its flight. It has since demonstrated its ability to successfully soar back to the ground after being released from balloons at altitudes up to 34 kilometers (approximately 111,400 feet).

The drone has a modular payload bay that can carry sensors and other systems weighing up to a total of five kilograms (around 11 pounds) and can send data back to individuals on the ground while in flight via either a line-of-sight system or an Iridium satellite link, according to Stratodynamics' website. It's not immediately clear how far HiDRON's may be able to travel laterally from its launch point, but it is capable of gliding horizontally and the radio telemetry link has a stated range of 100 kilometers (just over 62 miles).

A rendering of the HiDRON drone showing the frame that is used to hold sensors and other systems inside its modular payload bay. Stratodynamics

The military dimension
There is, of course, clear potential military value in being able to launch drones, and potentially large swarms of them, from high-altitude balloons. This reality has not been lost on Chinese researchers, as well as on those in other countries.

"Whether they can play a practical role in military operations remains an open question,” Beihang University's Professor Yang told SCMP in 2017, citing technical hurdles in creating suitable uncrewed aircraft capable of being deployed in the stratosphere.

It's worth pointing out here that Beihang University's broader work on high-altitude lighter-than-air craft, including solar-powered dirigible-like types, with clear potential military applications, is well-established, as you can read more about in this past War Zone feature. Last month, The New York Times published a detailed piece centered on another researcher at that institution, Wu Zhe.

A rendering of one of Beihang University's solar-powered uncrewed airship designs called Tian Heng, which was reportedly flight tested in 2017. Beihang University

That story explored his work and direct links to at least three of the six companies the U.S. government has now sanctioned over their ties to the Chinese government's high-altitude balloon surveillance program.

In addition, in 2017, SCMP reported that Yang Yanchu, the researcher at the Academy of Optoelectronics who led the tests over Inner Mongolia, specifically said the sensors on the experimental drones that had been test-launched were capable of being used to "locate military presence or activities." In addition, he explained to the outlet that "the goal of our research is to launch hundreds of these drones in one shot, like letting loose a bee or ant colony."

"The innovative application of the balloon system and micro air vehicles [MAV] proposed by our group provides a possibility for the MAV to execute long-endurance long-distance scientific or military missions," the 2020 paper from the researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences also says bluntly.

It would not be hard to imagine that what we know about ostensibly scientific-focused work on balloon-launched drones in China offers just a glimpse of what is also being done in the country on the military side. In general, the lines separating work done at Chinese scientific organizations and commercial enterprises engaged in advanced aerospace work, among many other things, and the country's military research and development efforts are very often, at best, blurred.

Chinese scientific, commercial, and military entities are not the only ones with interest in high-altitude balloons or the ability to launch drones from them, either. In their 2020 paper, the Chinese Academy of Sciences researchers say their proposed concept was directly inspired in part by work the U.S. Navy's Naval Research Laboratory conducted as part of its Close-in Covert Autonomous Disposable Aircraft (CICADA) project.

Like the Chinese proposal, CICADA involved unpowered glide-like micro drones made in large part from circuit boards with GPS-assisted navigation capabilities and the ability to carry small sensors. The Navy conducted a slew of tests of multiple CICADA designs between 2010 and 2020. Launches of CICADAs, in small numbers and in swarms of up to 1,000 drones, from various platforms, including crewed and uncrewed aircraft, were part of this overall effort. In at least one test carried out in the early 2020s, CICADAs were deployed from another drone, called Tempest, which had itself been first released from a high-altitude balloon.

Two different CICADA drone designs. USN

A Tempest drone, with a CICADA under each wing, falls from a high-altitude balloon during a test. USN

Continued.....

Housecarl · Mar 2, 2023

Continued.....

The exact current state of the CICADA effort is unclear, but the U.S. military's interest both in low-cost drone swarms and the potential to deploy them from various aerial platforms, including high-flying balloons, has not diminished. Experimentation with these kinds of capabilities within the U.S. military extends beyond the Navy, too.

Perdix, a project that the Pentagon's Strategic Capabilities Office ran between 2014 and 2016, which included cooperation with the Navy, saw the development of another micro-drone similar in some general respects to CICADA. However, the Perdix drone was powered, using a small electric motor to drive a pusher propeller. Demonstrations showed that crewed aircraft, operating a much lower altitudes than a stratospheric balloon, could deploy swarms of dozens, if not more, of these drones at a time. These swarms could be controlled as a cooperative team.

View: https://youtu.be/ndFKUKHfuM0

In 2021, the Pentagon announced that its Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (JCTD) program office had turned over various uncrewed swarming technology research and development efforts, or parts thereof, to the U.S. Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marine Corps. All of the projects centered on various means of employing versions of Raytheon's Coyote drone in swarms, including air-launched and sea and ground-based concepts.

At that time, the Navy had already experimented with the original Coyote design through a program called Low-Cost UAV Swarming Technology (LOCUST). Subsequent Coyote variants have been developed that can be configured as loitering munitions or anti-drone interceptors, among other things.

View: https://youtu.be/AIgTzduM7ZU

The U.S. Army has also been exploring concepts specifically centered on using high-altitude balloons to deploy a variety of payloads over the battlefield, including deep inside enemy-controlled territory. The service has specifically described how balloons could be used to disperse unattended ground sensors and drones of various types in highly contested areas. Unattended ground sensors are typically emplaced discreetly to help monitor enemy force movements and other activities. When it comes to drones, the Army's plans include discussions about larger and otherwise more capable designs than the Chinese PCB-based microdrones or the Navy's CICADA concept that could be employed as loitering munitions, as you can read more about here.

This US Army graphic from 2020 relating to the service's plans for a multi-layered Multi-Domain Sensing System (MDSS) shows high-altitude balloons being employed in a variety of roles, including as platforms to release unattended ground sensors and drone swarms. US Army

The Army has a broader vision for how it might use lighter-than-air craft in future conflicts that would involve them performing other tasks, including acting as surveillance and communication nodes. The Navy has been experimenting with balloons, such as Raven Aerostar's Thunderhead, in this latter role, as well. Other companies, like the Sierra Nevada Corporation, with its Lighter-Than-Air High-Altitude Platform Station (LTA-HAPS), are pitching similar capabilities to the U.S. military and others.

View: https://youtu.be/C0xXKrLCDd8

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1631036863136890881

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Just what can balloon-launched drones do?
Whether employed by the Chinese or U.S. armed forces, or any other actor, balloons loaded with swarms of drones could offer significant advantages over other systems for carrying out ISR and other missions. At their core, modern high-altitude balloons and airships offer platforms that can navigate and maneuver across long distances to designated target areas. Once there, they are then capable of persistently holding station against prevailing winds.

The Pentagon has previously said specifically that the Chinese spy balloon shot down off the coast of South Carolina in February had the ability to maneuver. A high-resolution image of the balloon that the U.S. military subsequently released shows that its payload included what appears to be four sets of propellers.

A view of the Chinese spy balloon flying over the central United States taken from a U.S. Air Force U-2S Dragon Lady spy plane on February 3, 2023. DOD

A close-up of the Chinese spy balloon's payload showing what may be four sets of propellers with white propeller hubs, among other features. DOD

Another similar high-flying balloon spotted flying over Japan in 2020, which authorities in that country now believe is likely linked to a broader Chinese high-altitude surveillance program, had very visible propellers, as you can see in the video below.

View: https://youtu.be/I4wv11Rw4Sk

Drones, even very small unpowered types, launched from these altitudes have the potential to travel very far distances themselves. This could allow the balloon or airship acting as the launch platform to either stay further away from the actual area of interest, helping to reduce the potential for detection, or try to reach targets deeper inside enemy territory. This latter point in particular, as has already been noted, is a general capability that the U.S. Army has publicly expressed explicit interest in and one that Chinese researchers have at least alluded to.
As the incidents in the airspace over the United States and Canada in February further highlighted, lighter-than-air craft can be difficult to spot and track on radar, to begin with.

Continued.....

Housecarl · Mar 2, 2023

Continued.....

In the two Chinese tests over Inner Mongolia in 2017, the intended targets were reportedly 100 kilometers (just over 62 miles) away. However, in both instances, the drones had difficulty maintaining stability and traveled only 3.3 kilometers (around 2 miles) and 15.8 kilometers (just over 9.8 miles) after being launched at their respective altitudes (nine kilometers/~29,527.5 feet and 25 kilometers/~82,021 feet), according to the 2020 Chinese Academy of Sciences research paper.

A graphic showing the flight paths of the two drones that were released during the tests over Inner Mongolia in 2017. Chinese Academy of Sciences via International Journal of Micro Air Vehicles

The Navy separately demonstrated the ability of CICADA drones to glide up to 11 miles away from a launch platform flying at just 18,000 feet.
If a balloon could indeed carry drones able to fly 100 kilometers (62 miles) away from the launch point, they would be able to reach any location within a circle around that point covering approximately 31,416 square kilometers (around 12,130 square miles).

The drones could be programmed to try to fly to a designated point for recovery on the ground or be designed to be expendable. Depending on the sensors and other systems installed, they could potentially relay useful information back to command and control nodes in near-real-time via various means. The launching balloon could serve as an immediate relay point, receiving data from the drone and forwarding it on via a satellite link.
Additional types of networks, including mesh-type ones utilizing a constellation of other high-altitude balloons, drones, and/or other platforms, could be utilized, too. High-altitude balloons, in general, make excellent platforms for communications and data-sharing systems given the excellent lines of sight they provide for those links.

A graphic depicting, in broad strokes, a concept for deploying drones via high-altitude balloon and then using a satellite to relay information to a control node. Chinese Academy of Sciences via International Journal of Micro Air Vehicles

Even without the ability to carry cameras or other imagery-gathering sensors, the drones could collect various kinds of useful intelligence while flying along those paths. Just being able to scoop up data on electromagnetic signals in the area, and where they are coming from, could help the process of establishing a so-called electronic order of battle of an opponent's radars, communications nodes, and other emitters, and their dispositions. Just locating relatively benign signals could even be key in locating enemy forces.

A fully-networked swarm of drones could be used to gather such intelligence more effectively and efficiently across a broader area in a shorter amount of time, as well.

Intelligence-gathering is just one potential role for balloon-launched drones. Loaded with small electronic warfare jammers, or even just fitted with radar reflectors to act as decoys, they could overwhelm or confuse enemy air defenders. This, in turn, might help mask friendly assets or otherwise draw an opponent's attention away from real threats, or simply make it difficult for them to respond effectively.

There are already precedents for using balloons carrying radar reflectors themselves to help gather intelligence about enemy air defense capabilities via stimulating them and even prompting them to waste valuable time and resources. The Russians have just recently been employing such tactics in Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1625864864802516992

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Depending on their exact size and capabilities, drones deployed from high-altitude balloons could perform other tasks, too, including direct strikes on targets down below. A swarm of them would be able to target enemy assets across a broad area. They could be used to quickly destroy key capabilities, or at least disable them temporarily, such as air defense networks, by targeting fragile things like radar dishes or antenna arrays that can be honed in on by their RF energy. You could imagine a balloon with the ability to locate electronic emissions from threat air defense systems from on high, then releasing drones to go home in on those emissions and attack them, all from behind or very near enemy lines.

Even drones only capable of carrying relatively small warheads could be used to inflict significant damage to military logistics nodes, such as ammunition and fuel dumps by triggering secondary explosions. On top of all this, they could just harass enemy forces, upending their decision-making cycles, keeping them on edge, and degrading morale.

With certain payloads, drones that ostensibly crash inside hostile territory might actually be able to perform useful functions. They could effectively turn into ground-based sensors or electronic warfare jammers, or even small land mines, for instance. One of the explicit ideas behind the U.S. Navy's CICADA program was exploring a capability "to 'seed' an area with miniature electronic payloads." As mentioned earlier, the Army's plans have included balloon-deployed unattended ground sensors, too.

The coming swarm
One of the inherent benefits a fully networked swarm offers is that each drone within it can be configured to perform just one mission, with the entire group then being able to carry out multiple tasks simultaneously. As such, a swarm released from a high-altitude balloon could be tasked to perform a mix of the aforementioned mission sets in order to achieve a common overall goal.

Chinese companies, in particular, have made significant strides in recent years in the development of relevant control architectures for operating and other managing swarms made up of drones with high degrees of autonomy. For instance, the two videos below show ground control systems being used to quickly assign and reassign sub-groups of drones from a larger swarm to conduct tasks in multiple zones across a broad area simultaneously.

View: https://youtu.be/_7fn0gVwrGU

View: https://youtu.be/M35GK1sZD5I

Both clips are directly associated with a ground-based launcher capable of deploying swarms of loitering munitions produced by the state-run China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC), which The War Zone has profiled in the past. A swarm launcher similar to the one seen on the truck-based system could potentially be adapted for use suspended from a high-altitude balloon.

Swarms made up of expendable drones present additional issues for a defender in terms of cost calculus. The reality has been notably exposed by the experiences in recent years of the Suadi Arabian armed forces in their efforts to intercept and shoot down drones launched by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen. Even without employing drones in networked swarms, the Houthis have been able to gobble up significant Saudi air defense resources that come at a high cost and long lead time.

This was also highlighted, in way, by the incidents last month in U.S. and Canadian airspace. The Chinese spy balloon and each of the other three objects were brought down by AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles, each of which costs around $450,000, fired from fighter jets that cost tens of thousands of dollars per hour to operate. A second missile was needed to bring down the object over Lake Huron, as well.

Had the balloon or other objects released drones, it would have required even more resources to try to neutralize or otherwise contain them, if they could even be spotted and tracked at all. A large number of balloons or other lighter-than-air platforms carrying swarms deployed at once would only magnify these issues without a significant increase in costs for whoever might be employing them.

This isn't even taking into account the costly sensor networks needed to spot, categorize, and track these potential threats. We know that the U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) needed to tweak the settings on its radars just to detect the other three objects and that doing so created a glut of additional data that needed to be sifted through, presenting the increased potential for false positives and other issues.

In general, drone swarms employed in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance roles, among others, are set to become a defining feature on future battlefields. There are likely to be especially critical for combatants engaged in major, high-end conflicts, such as a potential one between the United States in China in the Pacific region. Wargames focused on various Taiwan crisis scenarios, including tabletop exercises conducted under the auspices of the U.S. military, have repeatedly highlighted how swarms could be game-changing in that specific context, as you can read more about here.

USAF
How best to deliver those swarms of smaller drones to a battlefield area remains an open question. With that in mind then, it's not surprising at all that the Chinese military, as well as the U.S. military and others, would be interested in what balloon have to offer as a delivery system for such capabilities. They are by their very nature low risk, hard to detect and shoot down, and can travel over long distances to deliver their payloads. While developments over the past decade or so have highlighted technical hurdles to overcome, such as ensuring drones remain stable after launch at very high altitudes, they have also demonstrated very real capabilities.
All told, the idea of using high-altitude balloons for intelligence-gathering and other military roles is clearly in the midst of a renaissance of sorts in China, as well as the United States and other countries. The shootdown of the Chinese spy balloon in U.S. territorial waters off the coast of South Carolina last month only underscores that these capabilities are being actively used now. On top of this, it has shone a new light on the extensive work that the U.S. military, among others, has also been doing in this arena.
With all this in mind, high-altitude balloons look set to become more commonly employed to perform various military missions. This potentially includes launching drones, a capability that Chinese groups and others have already demonstrated to varying degrees.
Contact the author: joe@thedrive.com

Cruise Missiles Could Get Added To MQ-9's Arsenal

Patrick Chase1d
Wow, GA sure is desperate to drum up Reaper sales.Seriously, the Avenger would seem to make more sense because its higher speed and range would make it better able to respond to target detections in a timely manner. It's also a bigger platform, with correspondingly less (relative) impact to range/endurance from carrying the missile.
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Odd High-Altitude Flight Tracking Readings Pop Up Around U.S. Capital

Tempestzzzz2h
there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know.
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3

Gone In (Less Than) 60 Seconds: Thieves Nab Six Challenger Hellcats from Dealer Lot

Slow Joe Crow1d
Did the leader of the operation say "I am a bad bad man" as he pulled on his leather jacket?
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8

Video Shows Drone Landing On Russian A-50 Radar Jet That Was Supposedly Attacked

LL658h
So IF they did attack they shotgunned the aircraft. Them small holes would be hard to see. Plane could fly but the radar might not work or work right.Damaged wiring could short and burn it later if not replaced.
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17

Incredible Video Of Soldier In Ukrainian Trench Totally Unfazed By Withering Fire

KinjaRefugee14h
I have never been in combat and I am not knocking anyone's bravery. Is he being brave or is he broken. Is he acting on "autopilot" because he has gone past fear into a state of shock which makes him not fearless, but uncaring or numb? Again, I've never been there. I got a little scared just watching the video and knowing he wasn't hurt. I can't imagine what he could be feeling.
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8

Rolls-Royce Offers Peek At The B-52’s New Engines Undergoing Testing

Miles Naismith23h
I’m going to tell my next client that the invoice is wrong, it’s actually 50% higher and see what happens. It must be nice to be Boeing.
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Conversation 90 Comments

jward · Mar 3, 2023

Doomsday or Not, the Level of Nuclear Risk Just Got Higher

Paul Poast

Back in January, the Chicago-based Bulletin of Atomic Scientists set their “Doomsday Clock” to 90 seconds before midnight. The clock captures the organization’s assessment of how close the world is to “global catastrophe,” namely the prospect of nuclear war. In a statement, the Bulletin said the new clock setting was “largely (though not exclusively) because of the mounting dangers of the war in Ukraine.”

That the war in Ukraine would be the primary factor in the organization’s determination is understandable. Over the past year, Russian officials, notably President Vladimir Putin, have repeatedly hinted at the possibility of using nuclear weapons if Western nations respond too strongly to Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine, such as attacking Russian territory. Additionally, the West’s hesitant and tentative approach toward Russia appears to show the value of possessing nuclear weapons. Think back to the debates over the implementation of a no-fly zone early in the war. The concern, well-expressed at the time by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, is that “we would end up with something that could end in a full-fledged war in Europe.”

Make no mistake, by “full-fledged war,” he meant the potential use of nuclear weapons. No such threat existed when the U.S. imposed no-fly zones over Bosnia, Iraq and Libya in the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s. This is also why the Biden administration and NATO allies have been tentative and gradual in their disbursement of advanced weaponry to Ukraine. Each step—starting with HIMARS rocket launchers, then Main Battle Tanks and perhaps soon F-16 fighter jets—is a potential rung up the escalation ladder, a ladder that could conceivably end in the use of a nuclear weapon by Putin.
One can question the methodology and mission creep that goes into the setting of the Bulletin’s clock, such as how it has broadened over the years to include non-nuclear war and other threats to human civilization, such as climate change. Regardless of such questions and criticisms, it is undeniable that the past few weeks have done much to reinforce the idea that the world is entering a dangerous era of nuclear risk. Three recent events stand out.

First, adding to an already tense nuclear situation in Europe, Putin signed a law Tuesday formally suspending Russia’s participation in the New START arms control treaty. The treaty—signed in 2010 by then-U.S. President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart at the time, Dmitry Medvedev—significantly reduced the excessive U.S. and Russian stockpiles of nuclear weapons built up during the Cold War. And it was intended to pave the way to finally eliminating them. But during an address last week marking the first anniversary of the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, Putin claimed that the Western powers and NATO want “to inflict a strategic defeat on us and also to get to our nuclear sites.”

The past few weeks have done much to reinforce the idea that the world is entering a dangerous era of nuclear risk.

Of course, one could claim that the treaty was already effectively dead, as Russia had been refusing to allow verification of its nuclear facilities by U.S. inspectors, a key component of the treaty. Nevertheless, Russia’s explicit suspension of its adherence to the treaty is worrying, given the various veiled and not-so-veiled nuclear threats it has issued over the past year.

Second, it now seems that Iran has effectively achieved weapons-grade uranium, having last week reached an enrichment level of 84 percent, according to international monitors. Though 90-percent enrichment is usually described as the threshold needed for a weapon, the lower level would simply require a greater amount of fissile material. Iran’s government claims that the 84 percent enrichment level was reached only momentarily and accidentally, as the country was only attempting to hit 60 percent enrichment, which would be below the threshold for weaponization.

Setting such technicalities aside, the episode serves to further heighten the fears of the U.S., some European nations and states across the Middle East that have long opposed Iran acquiring a bomb, even if they have taken different approaches to preventing it, ranging from diplomatic enticements to “maximum pressure” coercion. The fear is that once Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, it could set off a regional cascade of proliferation, with other states, such as Iran’s long-time rival Saudi Arabia and possibly Turkey, also developing a bomb. More immediately and quite concerningly, reports are resurfacing that Israel may take matters into its own hands, allegedly with U.S. support, by striking Iran before it reaches the nuclear threshold or is able to actually arm a bomb.
Third, the Korean Peninsula is once again becoming a dangerous arena for potential nuclear use. This past week, North Korea, perhaps frustrated by the lack of attention it is getting given everything else going on in the world, appears to be planning another nuclear test. This comes on top of a record year of testing of its ballistic missiles, which would be used for delivering a bomb.

Though one could dismiss North Korea’s saber-rattling as nothing new, more disconcerting is the fact that South Korea is now also sending similar signals, with recent reports suggesting that Seoul is considering developing its own bomb. Part of South Korea’s concern is that the U.S., long the anchor of deterrence on the peninsula, could be stretching itself too thin, given the renewed need to focus on Europe and protect Taiwan in the face of China’s latest ominous pronouncements regarding the island. Seoul could even be seeking to hedge against the possible return of a U.S. president skeptical of Washington’s alliance commitments after the 2024 election. Regardless of the reasons, it would be a dangerous escalation, one that contrasts with the pursuit by previous South Korean governments of a “Sunshine Policy” aimed at positively engaging with North Korea.

On a related note, if South Korea goes the nuclear route, could Japan be far behind? While Japan already has a “bomb in the basement,” meaning it has the latent technical capabilities to quickly develop a nuclear weapon, all indications are that going nuclear is not an immediate policy option for Tokyo. But Japan’s government has given it serious thought in the past. For instance, although former Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo ultimately opted not to develop a nuclear capability, in 2002, when he was serving as deputy chief Cabinet secretary, he reportedly told an audience of students, “The possession of nuclear bombs is constitutional, so long as they are small.” The legacy of being the only country to have had nuclear weapons used against it may serve as a powerful brake on Japan itself developing the weapons. But ultimately, Tokyo will not exclude any action, including the possession of a nuclear bomb, if it feels that is the only way to deter potential aggression by China.

The expectation is that the war in Ukraine will last into the future. Tensions continue to rise between the United States and China. And the escalation threats are peaking in the Middle East and on the Korean Peninsula. The world may or may not be inching ever closer to doomsday. But it is indeed entering a dangerous era of nuclear risk.
Paul Poast is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago and a nonresident fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

Doomsday or Not, the Level of Nuclear Risk Just Got Higher

jward · Mar 4, 2023

China: Defense boost to meet 'complex security challenges'

Associated Press

BEIJING — Increases in China’s defense budget have been “appropriate and reasonable” and are aimed at meeting “complex security challenges,” a spokesperson for the country’s rubber-stamp parliament said Saturday.
Wang Chao gave no indication of whether the rate of increase to be announced Sunday at the opening of the National People’s Congress’s annual session would be above or below last year’s 7.1%.
But he said the defense budget has remained stable as a share of GDP and that China’s military modernization “will not be a threat to any country.”

“On the contrary, it will only be a positive force for safeguarding regional stability and world peace,” Wang told reporters at a news conference.
“The increase in defense spending is needed for meeting the complex security challenges and for China to fulfill its responsibilities as a major country,” he said.
“China’s defense spending ... is lower than the world average and the increase is appropriate and reasonable,” Wang said.
China spent 1.7% of GDP on its military in 2021, according to the World Bank, while the U.S., with its massive overseas obligations, spent a relatively high 3.5%.
China budgeted 1.45 trillion yuan (then $229 billion) for last year — roughly double the figure from 2013. Consistent annual increases for more than two decades have allowed the 2 million-member People’s Liberation Army to increase its capabilities across all categories.

Along with the world’s biggest standing army, China has the world’s largest navy and recently launched its third aircraft carrier. It boasts a massive stockpile of missiles, along with stealth aircraft, bombers capable of delivering nuclear weapons, advanced surface ships and nuclear powered submarines.
China has already established one foreign military base in the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti and is refurbishing Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base that could give it at least a semi-permanent presence on the Gulf of Thailand facing the disputed South China Sea.

The modernization effort has prompted concerns among the U.S. and its allies, particularly over Taiwan, the self-governing island democracy that China claims as its territory to be brought under its control by force if necessary.
That has prompted a steady flow of weapons sales to the island, including ground systems, air defense missiles and F-16 fighters. Taiwan itself recently extended mandatory military service from four months to one year and has been revitalizing its own defense industries, including building submarines for the first time.
Although no longer increasing at the double-digit annual percentage rates of past decades, China’s defense spending has remained relatively high despite skyrocketing levels of government debt and an economy that grew last year at its second-lowest level in at least four decades.
The government says most of the spending increases will go toward improving welfare for troops. Observers say the budget omits much of China’s spending on weaponry, most of which is developed domestically after years of large-scale imports from Russia.

China’s huge capacity and Russia’s massive expenditures of artillery shells and other materiel in its war on Ukraine have raised concerns in the U.S. and elsewhere that Beijing may provide Moscow with military assistance.
Speaking at the G-20 meeting in India on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that were China to engage in “material, lethal support for Russia’s aggression or were to engage in the systematic evasion of sanctions to help Russia, that would be a serious problem for our countries.”
“We’ve not seen it do that yet, but we’ve seen it considering that proposition ... and I made clear that there would be consequences for engaging in those actions,” Blinken said.

China has been carrying out what it calls normal trade with Russia — including a three-fold increase in coal imports through just one border crossing, according to Chinese media — seen as providing Moscow with a partial economic lifeline alongside other countries such as India.
Beijing last month issued a proposal calling for a cease-fire and peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, but has also said it has a “no-limits friendship” with Russia and has refused to criticize Moscow’s invasion, or even to call it an invasion. It has accused the U.S. and NATO of provoking the conflict and condemned sanctions leveled against Russia and entities seen as aiding its military effort.

Last week, those sanctions were expanded to include a Chinese company known as Spacety China, which has supplied satellite imagery of Ukraine to affiliates of Wagner Group, a private Russian military contractor owned by a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin. A Luxembourg-based subsidiary of Spacety China was also targeted.
China, including through the NPC, has vowed to take countermeasures in response to such sanctions, and Wang said “some countries” have been “abusing extra-territorial application of their domestic laws ... with the aim of taking down foreign entities and individuals and serving their own interests.”

“China stands firmly against such practices. It has introduced a number of laws and regulations to counter the containment, suppression and interference in internal affairs,” Wang said.
“For acts that undermine China’s sovereignty, security and development interests and harm the lawful rights and interests of Chinese nationals, the law contains relevant provisions to firmly counter such acts,” he said.
___

posted for fair use

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/china-military-budget-us-russia/2023/03/04/175f1d4a-ba5f-11ed-b0df-8ca14de679ad_story.html

jward · Mar 4, 2023

N. Korea renews vow to bolster nuclear arsenal | Yonhap News Agency

김덕현

SEOUL, March 4 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Saturday renewed its pledge to bolster its nuclear arsenal, claiming its own nuclear deterrence would ensure balance of power in the region.
The North's foreign ministry also criticized the United States for leading to the collapse of international arms control systems.

"Nuclear deterrence ensures a balance of power in the region and a strong physical security to prevent the outbreak of a new war," the North's ministry said in a commentary.
North Korea claimed that unilateral arms buildup of the U.S. and its allies is increasing the risk of armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula.

The North's statement came as South Korea and the U.S. announced they will carry out joint military exercises this month to strengthen the allies' defensive posture.
The joint drill, called Freedom Shield exercise, is scheduled to take place from March 13-23 without a break, marking the longest-ever edition of their joint computer-simulation command post exercise.

It is to proceed concurrently with the new large-scale field training exercise, called "Warrior Shield," in line with the allies' push to reinforce training programs and enhance their "realism."
kdh@yna.co.kr

N. Korea renews vow to bolster nuclear arsenal | Yonhap News Agency

SEOUL, March 4 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Saturday renewed its pledge to bolster its nucle...

en.yna.co.kr

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