WAR 06-11-2016-to-06-17-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

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http://thehill.com/policy/defense/2...s-provide-surveillance-aircraft-in-isis-fight

NATO moves toward 'direct' role in ISIS fight

By Kristina Wong - 06/15/16 05:41 AM EDT
Comments 30

NATO is looking to train Iraqi officers and provide other direct support in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria to alleviate the burden on U.S. and other coalition members' resources.

"We will discuss how we can extend our training for Iraqi officers as they continue to fight ISIL," said the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday, using another acronym for the terrorist group.

"We will consider how we can provide direct support to the coalition against ISIL with AWACS surveillance aircraft," he added. An AWACS aircraft is one equipped with an Airborne Warning and Control System, essentially making it a flying air traffic control tower.

Officials expect more details to be nailed down in time for a decision at a major NATO summit in Warsaw in three weeks. The support has been requested in writing by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, a senior NATO official said on background.

The official said the training would be of an advisory nature, such as helping the government reform its defense community, learning how to do long-term defense planning and counter improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and providing logistics and medical care for troops.

"These are things that the Iraqi system needs very much," the official said. "The aim is to scale up to move inside Iraq and to increase the scope."

The official said currently, about 500 or 600 Iraqis are being trained in Jordan, but NATO is looking to train them inside Iraq and scale that training up.

"NATO's got quite a bit of experience over the last 15 years on training indigenous military capabilities, certainly in Afghanistan, but also in Iraq," said a senior NATO official.

The official said the current coalition air campaign against ISIS is enabled by AWACS aircraft — largely a U.S. capability, but NATO could contribute some of its 16 AWACS aircraft.

"If there's an AWACS gap in number of hours per week, then NATO could plug in and try to fill that gap," the official said.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-navy-ships-idUSKCN0YZ285

Business | Mon Jun 13, 2016 3:00pm EDT
Related: World, Russia, Aerospace & Defense

Second U.S. aircraft carrier enters Mediterranean: U.S. Navy

BERLIN | By Andrea Shalal


The U.S. aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower entered the Mediterranean late on Monday, the U.S. Navy said, at a time when U.S. officials are raising alarm over Russia's maritime expansion.

The Eisenhower, also known as the "Ike," will relieve the USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group which later this month heads back to the United States after an extended eight-month deployment.

The Eisenhower, which also leads a strike group of cruisers, destroyers and warplanes, is scheduled to continue on to the Gulf to participate in U.S. air strikes on Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria. Exact details of its deployment have not been released.

Fighter jets based on the Truman have been carrying out air strikes against Islamic State from the Mediterranean since June 3.

The Eisenhower's deployment is part of a rotation of U.S. forces supporting maritime security operations around the globe, the Navy said. Its strike group includes two guided-missile cruisers, four guided-missile destroyers and nine air squadrons.

The Navy said the presence of two carrier strike groups in the Mediterranean showed the U.S. commitment to safety and security, while sending "a strong message of support to our allies and partners in Europe."

The move coincides with NATO military exercises across eastern Europe and Turkey that may raise tensions with Russia.

U.S. officials say Russia is operating warships and submarines in the Mediterranean and plans its own military exercises in coming weeks.

Vice Admiral James Foggo, who heads the U.S. Navy's fleet in the Mediterranean, and naval analyst Alarik Fritz last week said Russia was aggressively expanding its surface and submarine maritime capabilities from the Arctic to the Black Sea.

"Combined with extensive and frequent submarine patrols throughout the North Atlantic and Norwegian Sea, and forward-deployed forces in Syria, Russia has the capability to hold nearly all NATO maritime forces at risk," they wrote in the naval journal Proceedings.

They said it was critical to leverage allied navies to work with NATO partners so they could respond to emergencies and protect maritime infrastructure.

Russia last week said it would respond to a U.S. destroyer's entry into the Black Sea with unspecified measures, saying it and other deployments were designed to ratchet up tensions ahead of a NATO summit in Warsaw next month.


(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

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http://www.military.com/daily-news/...nderway-marks-milestone-navy-top-officer.html

Six Aircraft Carriers Underway Marks Milestone for Navy: Top Officer
Jun 14, 2016 | by Hope Hodge Seck
Comments 37

As the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower entered the Mediterranean Sea this week, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson told lawmakers on Capitol Hill the deployment has historic import for the Navy.

Speaking at a meeting of the Congressional Shipbuilding Caucus on Tuesday morning, Richardson provided new details about the Navy's missions in two high-profile regions.

American warships are operating in the South China Sea, where intensifying territorial counterclaims and aggressive actions by China are responsible for heightening tension, and the Middle East, where two carriers -- the Harry S. Truman and the Eisenhower -- now are positioned to carry out airstrikes against targets of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.

As of last week, Richardson said, the Navy had six carriers underway -- a development he called "a milestone."

Two conducted coastal training operations, while four were forward deployed, including Eisenhower, Truman, the John C. Stennis in the South China Sea, and the Japan-based Ronald Reagan, which began its 2016 patrol in the Pacific last week.

"Last week was sort of a milestone event," Richardson said. "Everyone who thinks about and talks about shipbuilding can feel good about that day."

The chief said his two-day visit to the deployed Stennis earlier gave greater context to discussions of the importance of operations in the South China Sea and the high operational tempo for sailors there.

The more than 75 aircraft attached to the carrier air wing have flown roughly 4,000 sorties around the South China Sea during the course of the strike group's seven-month deployment, Richardson said.

"I wanted to be there because of course we're all getting reports of how important and busy that part of the world is, but when you're there on the carrier, you look around and there on the starboard quarter is a Jiangkai frigate and on the port quarter is the AGI, [Dongdiao-class Electronic Reconnaissance Ship], an intelligence collection ship from the People’s Liberation Army Navy," Richardson said.

"You get to count the number of sorties that they're doing overhead, you get a real sense and you can feel it, how busy they are, what this new normal is that's being established," he said.

In the Mediterranean, where there are now two carrier strike groups ahead of the Truman's redeployment to its homeport of Norfolk, Virginia later this month, Richardson said the role of providing maritime security went beyond the significant number of airstrikes launched on enemy targets in Iraq and Syria.

Elements of the Truman strike group that remained behind in the Persian Gulf while the carrier transited to the Mediterranean provided a steady state-presence to support allies in the region.

Meanwhile, Richardson said, ships and aircraft provided intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

"They bring a tremendous amount of awareness," he said.

In light of ongoing operations and high operational tempo, Richardson said there was a mandate for new ship construction to be faster and more innovative. The "truisms" that it should take three to five years to design a ship and another five to build it might not have to hold true going forward, he said.

"I think we need to challenge that," he said. "We've got to continue to challenge ourselves, or we're just going to fall into this situation where we're not going to be as capable and agile as we need to."

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.

Video

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.realcleardefense.com/art..._cover_for_shrinking_the_military_109448.html

June 15, 2016

Is The Third Offset Just a Cover for Shrinking the Military?

By Daniel Gouré


When he became Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter found himself with a seemingly insoluble dilemma. He needed simultaneously to maintain high readiness of existing forces that are in continuous use around the world fighting Islamic jihadists and deterring state adversaries while also preparing for future conflicts involving near-peer nation states. These new competitors have closed the gap with the U.S. military in a number of key technology areas and, in some cases such as electronic warfare, cyber and long-range missiles, has exceeded our own capabilities. And he had to achieve both these objectives with a defense budget that was suffering under a $1 trillion cut over ten years due to the Budget Control Act. In order to balance the books, so to speak, Secretary Carter and senior Pentagon leaders came up with the idea of pursuing a Third Offset Strategy.

The notion of pursuing a Third Offset Strategy is built on the assertion made in a speech by Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work that since the end of World War Two the United States has twice undertaken clearly defined strategies of investment in new technologies and the creation of appropriate forces and operational concepts to counter a perceived narrowing of the gap between U.S. military capabilities and those of our principal adversaries. The first offset was President Eisenhower’s New Look Strategy which proposed a large-scale expansion in the number of U.S. nuclear weapons and their roles in military operations to deter the growing threat of the massive and mechanized Red Army. Reliance on nuclear weapons for deterrence had the additional advantage of allowing the Pentagon to reduce the overall size of the military as well as the costs of national defense.

The second offset was required when the Soviet Union attained nuclear parity with the United States, essentially undermining the deterrent value of a U.S. nuclear response to Russian conventional aggression. Since the Red Army still maintained a massive quantitative advantage in Europe and the Far East in comparison to the United States and its allies, a new way had to be found to prevent Moscow from initiating hostilities. The second offset strategy relied on several key technologies – stealth, precision guidance for aircraft and weapons and information networks – and a new strategy of deep attack to counter the threat from massed Soviet mechanized forces. The utility of this second offset strategy was demonstrated in two conflicts in 1991 and 2003. Happily, this strategy also had the virtue of maintaining U.S. military superiority in an era of declining defense budgets and shrinking forces that began in the mid-1980s and accelerated after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The third offset strategy hopes to accomplish two objectives. First, by investing in groundbreaking technologies in such areas as undersea systems, hypersonics, electronic warfare, big data analytics, advanced materials, 3D printing, energy and propulsion, robotics, autonomy, man-machine interfaces and advanced sensing and computing, the Pentagon hopes to create new military capabilities that will counter competitors’ advances in precision weapons, long-range missiles and electronic warfare. Second, by relying more heavily on technologies developed in commercial industry and, even more important, on the practices of cutting-edge IT companies in the areas of innovation, experimentation and rapid development and deployment, DoD believes it will learn the ingredients to Silicon Valley’s secret sauce for rapidly developing and bringing to market new products and successively lower prices. To that end, Secretary Carter created the Defense Innovation Initiative and the Strategic Capabilities Office and set up consulates in Silicon Valley and Boston under the new Defense Innovation Unit-Experimental, or DIUx.

The Secretary admits that he is not sure what will come of this focus on new technologies and the outreach to non-traditional defense suppliers. The first two offsets were much more focused with respect to the problems that were being addressed, the technologies in which they were investing and the parts of the private sector they were engaging. The Third Offset Strategy resembles a high tech version of the casting call for the tryouts for America’s Got Talent; even the producers have no idea who will show up or how they will perform.

Like the other offset strategies, this one has a somewhat hidden agenda: to obfuscate the fact that the U.S. is not spending enough on defense and that the Obama Administration is continuing with its plan to shrink the size of the armed forces in order to free up money for readiness and modernization. The hope is that the Third Offset Strategy will do for the military what is already being done for parking garages, fast food restaurants and retail stores: reduce the need for human beings.

There is room in the military for improved automation and the use of robots. For example, the new Ford-class aircraft carrier will be able to launch substantially more aircraft sorties each day with a crew that is 25 percent smaller. But there are also practical limits to how small a military with global responsibilities can become and still do its job. The Pentagon found this out in 2004 when it had to increase substantially the size of the Active Component of the Army and rely more heavily on the National Guard and Reserve to cope with the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The bigger danger is that DoD will become enamored of its new offset strategy and cut current programs and forces in anticipation of great results emerging from its investments in automation, big data and robots. There is a long history of the Pentagon and the White House promising huge leaps forward in military capabilities for future systems that are just PowerPoint slides, but cutting real capabilities now.


This article originally appeared at Lexington Institute.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.marketwatch.com/story/wi...ies-between-us-india-japan-tighten-2016-06-15

The Wall Street Journal

With eye on China, naval ties between U.S., India, Japan tighten
Maneuvers in Philippine Sea symbolize ‘an important strategic shift’

Published: June 15, 2016 10:48 p.m. ET

NEW DELHI — From the waters of the Philippine Sea this week emerged a partial outline of Washington’s vision for a new Asian maritime-security order that unites democratic powers to contend with a more-assertive and well-armed China.

A U.S. Navy aircraft-carrier strike group along with warships from India and Japan jointly practiced anti-submarine warfare and air-defense and search-and-rescue drills in one of the largest and most complex exercises held by the three countries.

Read: Asean members scold China, then quickly retract statement

The maneuvers were being tracked by a Chinese surveillance vessel, a U.S. Navy officer aboard the carrier USS John C. Stennis said on Wednesday. Last week, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Beijing hoped the training “will be conducive to regional peace, security and stability.”

Washington and Tokyo have long cooperated closely on defense. And the U.S. has been working to deepen strategic ties with India and to encourage New Delhi to play a more active role, not just in the Indian Ocean but also in the Pacific, as China’s rise shifts the regional balance of power.

Video

“Americans are looking for those who can share the burden,” said C. Raja Mohan, director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s India center. A strengthened three-way partnership among the U.S., Japan and India is “an important strategic shift.”

India sent two stealth frigates, a guided-missile corvette and a fleet-support ship to join the multiday Malabar exercises, part of an annual series of U.S.-India maneuvers that have grown increasingly sophisticated and wide-ranging. Japan has been a regular participant since 2014.

An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.

 

[Housecarl]

Just like old times......

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http://www.navytimes.com/story/mili...-warships-amid-rising-tensions-asia/85960100/

China shadows U.S. warships amid rising tensions in Asia

Kirk Spitzer, USA Today 9:23 p.m. EDT June 15, 2016
Comments 3

ABOARD THE USS JOHN C. STENNIS — When U.S. commanders kicked off a major international naval exercise this week, they found an uninvited guest: A Chinese Navy warship.

But it was no surprise.

Warships from the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) have begun to routinely shadow U.S. Navy ships through much of the region.


DEFENSE NEWS
Navies Begin Gathering for RIMPAC


U.S. commanders said Wednesday Chinese warships closely followed the powerful USS John C. Stennis carrier strike group from nearly the minute it entered the disputed South China Sea on a regular patrol in early March.

“We did see PLAN ships quite routinely throughout the South China Sea. In fact, we were in constant visual contact with at least one PLAN ship at any one time, 24/7,” said Rear Adm. Marcus Hitchcock, commander of the Stennis strike group.

That’s a major departure from recent years and seems to provide further evidence of China’s increasingly assertive behavior in the region.

Twice in the last week, PLAN warships have sailed into or alongside Japanese territorial waters, including those around the disputed Senkaku Islands, in the East China Sea. That’s sparked protests from Japan, one of America’s closest allies.


NAVY TIMES
Top Navy officer visits carrier in contested South China Sea


Warships from the U.S., Japan and India kicked off the sea portion of a weeklong joint exercise Wednesday in the Philippine Sea, not far from Japan’s southernmost islands.

The Navy describes the “Malabar” war games as “complex, high-end, war-fighting exercises” designed to increase the ability of U.S., Indian and Japanese naval forces to operate together.

Malabar began in 1992 as a bilateral exercise between India and the U.S. but has expanded in recent years to include Japan. This is the second time in three years that the exercises have been held near Japanese waters and marks an important shift in Indian relations toward the U.S. and its allies.

India is embroiled in a long-running border dispute with China and is wary of the PLAN’s increasing operations in the Indian Ocean.


NAVY TIMES
4-star vows to continue U.S. operations in South China Sea


Last week, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told a joint session of the U.S. Congress that a strong India-U.S. partnership “can anchor peace, prosperity and stability from Asia to Africa and from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific.”

The nuclear-powered Stennis is nearing the end of a planned six-month patrol through the Asia-Pacific region. Its strike group includes four other surface warships and a Los Angeles-class attack submarine.

Hitchcock said Wednesday that PLAN warships had followed as close as three to four miles from the USS Stennis while it was operating in international waters in the South China Sea.

He said a PLAN intelligence gathering ship had followed the Stennis group into the Philippine Sea last week. It was operating about seven to 10 miles from the carrier on Wednesday during the Malabar exercises, which are taking place in international waters.

Stennis’ commanding officer, Capt. Gregory Huffman, said the Chinese ships have operated in a professional manner throughout and that the Stennis group has been able to conduct operations unimpeded.

That’s a good thing if it lasts, said Jeffrey Hornung, an East Asia security specialist with the Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA, in Washington, D.C.

“The behavior the PLAN is exhibiting is not behavior that the U.S. Navy would engage in, nor is it behavior that we would expect other rule-of-law abiding nations to conduct. But it has come to be the norm for China,” Hornung said.

China claims nearly all of the South China Sea and has used massive dredging operations to build at least seven artificial islands, some with military-grade runways and port facilities.

More than $5 trillion in annual trade passes through the waterway and U.S. and officials are concerned that China could use the islands to restrict air and sea navigation. China has said it won’t do that.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter made a high-profile visit to the Stennis while it was in the South China Sea in April to criticize China’s territorial claims and island-building campaign.

Taiwan and four other countries also claim parts of the South China Sea. An international tribunal based in The Hague is expected to rule soon on a legal challenge by the Philippines against China’s claims in the region; China has said the tribunal has no authority and that it will ignore the ruling.

Everyone aboard the Stennis is aware of the Chinese ships shadowing the fleet, Lt. James Brigden, a launch and recovery officer, said.

“It’s always interesting to see our Chinese companion ‘in formation’ with the other ships. Their presence is always felt,” Brigden said. "We just try to treat it like another day, keep everybody focused on their jobs.”

 

[Housecarl]

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http://abcnews.go.com/International...traint-ethiopia-eritrea-border-clash-39888167

UN Chief Urges Restraint After Ethiopia-Eritrea Border Clash

By Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press · UNITED NATIONS — Jun 15, 2016, 6:52 PM ET

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Ethiopia and Eritrea on Wednesday "to exercise maximum restraint" following clashes on their disputed border.

Eritrea accused Ethiopia of "military aggression" by attacking its positions in the Tsorona Central Front, a border area that saw one of the bloodiest battles during their 1998-2000 border war. Ethiopia's military said its troops were provoked into launching a counter-offensive after Eritrean forces fired into Ethiopian positions on Sunday.

The U.N. chief met Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn in Brussels on Wednesday and Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson phoned Eritrean Foreign Minister Osman Saleh Mohammed.

"They urged both Governments to exercise maximum restraint and refrain from any act or statement that could exacerbate the situation," U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

"They also called on both governments to resolve their differences through peaceful means, including by ensuring the full implementation of the peace agreement they signed in 2000," he said.

Dujarric said the U.N. is available to assist in any peace efforts.

Eritrea and Ethiopia have been feuding over their border since Eritrea gained independence from the Addis Ababa government in 1993 after a 30-year guerrilla war.

A 1,700-strong U.N. force monitored a 15-mile (24-kilometer) wide, 620-mile (1,000-kilometer) long buffer zone between the Horn of Africa neighbors under the December 2000 peace agreement.

But tensions between the two countries remain high because of Ethiopia's refusal to accept a boundary commission's 2002 ruling on the border demarcation which awarded the key town of Badme to Eritrea. The Eritrean government progressively limited peacekeepers' movements in response and it July 2008 the Security Council ended the peacekeeping mission.

Secretary-General Ban warned that that a new war could break out if U.N. peacekeepers withdraw.

Dujarric said the U.N. now has no way to monitor "what is actually going on along the border."

--

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...lled-400-protesters-since-november-group-says

Ethiopia Forces Killed 400 Protesters Since November, Group Says

by Samuel Gebre
June 15, 2016 — 6:01 PM PDT

- Officers accused of firing into crowds, large-scale detentions
- Demonstrations erupted in Oromia region over plans for capital

Ethiopian security forces have killed more than 400 protesters and arrested tens of thousands of people since unrest began in the nation’s Oromia region in November, Human Rights Watch said.

Authorities used “excessive and unnecessary lethal force,” mass arrests and there was mistreatment in detention, the New York-based advocacy group said Thursday in a report. Access to information was also curbed as authorities acted to quell “largely peaceful” demonstrations that were sparked by the clearing of land for an investment project, the group said. Ethiopian Communications Minister Getachew Reda didn’t answer calls by Bloomberg seeking comment.

“Ethiopian security forces have fired on and killed hundreds of students, farmers, and other peaceful protesters with blatant disregard for human life,” Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

The demonstrations, triggered by concern over a blueprint for the expansion of the capital, Addis Ababa, have become one of the biggest challenges to Ethiopia’s ruling coalition since it came to power after unseating a military regime 25 years ago. Protesters feared the plan would displace farmers from the Oromo community, the country’s largest ethnic group, and benefit a “small elite,” Human Rights Watch said.

Death Toll

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said in a report it had counted 173 deaths in the Oromia region, including 14 security members and 14 officials, Fana Broadcasting Corp. reported on June 11.

Human Rights Watch said the government deployed military forces in Oromia for crowd-control as protests stretched into December, while security officers “repeatedly fired live ammunition into crowds with little or no warning or use of non-lethal crowd-control measures.” Many of those killed were students, including children younger than 18, according to the group.

Those detained said they were tortured or mistreated when detained in places including military camps, while several women alleged that they were raped or sexually assaulted, Human Rights Watch said. Its report is based on interviews in Ethiopia and abroad with more than 125 protesters, witnesses and alleged victims of abuse.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/2016/06/15/0200000000AEN20160615010951320.html?308a35f0

(LEAD) N. Korea vows to bolster nuclear deterrent to cope with U.S. threat

2016/06/15 23:03

ATTN: UPDATES with N. Korea's letter to U.N.; ADDS comment by U.S. military official)

SEOUL, June 15 (Yonhap) -- North Korea threatened Wednesday to strengthen its nuclear deterrent as it accused the United States of plotting a preemptive strike against Pyongyang.

"We will further bolster up in quality and quantity the nuclear deterrence for self-defense in face of the U.S. reckless war moves," an unidentified spokesman of North Korea's Foreign Ministry said in English-language comments carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.

He also warned that North Korea will "foil any slightest military provocation of the enemies with the Korean-style mode of merciless counteraction."

North Korea has long used the term, "nuclear deterrent," to refer to its nuclear arsenal. North Korea has so far conducted four nuclear tests, including the recent one in January.

The latest warning came in response to what the spokesman says is a provocative report on the North Korea's nuclear issue by a U.S. strategic information consulting company.

The report envisages a "precision air raid operation" against nuclear and military facilities in North Korea to destroy its nuclear capabilities, the KCNA said, without naming the U.S. firm.

The spokesman also claimed that the report is clear proof of the fact that "the surprise preemptive attack and armed invasion against North Korea are in the full-dress process of examination and preparation."

North Korea has frequently accused the U.S. of harboring a hostile policy toward Pyongyang and plotting with South Korea to invade the North, a charge denied by Washington.

Tensions persist on the Korean Peninsula over North Korea's missile and nuclear weapons programs.

Separately, the North's Foreign Ministry sent a letter to the U.N. Secretariat earlier this week and said that the U.N. should not put pressure on North Korea.

The U.N. has imposed the toughest sanctions ever on North Korea over its fourth nuclear test and its long-range rocket launch earlier this year.

The ministry also said the U.N. should exercise its influence on the U.S. so that Washington may give up its hostile policy against Pyongyang.

"We hope that leading figures of the U.N. Secretariat including the Secretary-General would be recorded ... for their positive contribution to easing tension on the Korean peninsula," according to the letter carried by KCNA.

In late May, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged North Korea to halt provocative actions after Pyongyang carried out an intermediate-range ballistic missile test in violation of U.N. resolutions.

In Honolulu, Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, director for operations at the U.S Pacific Command, said North Korea has demonstrated the level of missile and rocket engine technology with which it could launch a projectile into space.

He made the comments when asked by a South Korean reporter about the threat posed by North Korea's missile capabilities.

entropy@yna.co.kr

(END)

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-N...S-of-planning-precision-strike/6561466039750/

North Korea accuses U.S. of planning precision strike

By Elizabeth Shim Contact the Author | June 15, 2016 at 9:20 PM


SEOUL, June 15 (UPI) -- North Korea's foreign ministry spokesman said he has information on precision strike operations the United States is planning as part of its "blatant war of aggression" against the country.

Pyongyang's state-controlled news agency KCNA reported the spokesman has evidence Washington is openly discussing air strikes against North Korea's nuclear facilities.

"The fact that the United States is openly discussing 'precision strike operations' is a sign it is on the brink of taking an extremely reckless step," the spokesman said. "The fact the operation was made public ahead of the U.S.-South Korea joint military exercise, that dangerous 'scenario of war' taking place in August, cannot be overlooked."

The spokesman added the alleged U.S. policy justifies Pyongyang's policy of "Byungjin," or pursuing economic development alongside the development of nuclear weapons.

North Korea did not provide additional details on the report.

A South Korean analyst had said on Tuesday North Korea might conduct a fifth nuclear test during the months leading up to the U.S. presidential elections.

Pyongyang's possession of nuclear weapons has been presented to the world as a "fait accompli" and will be used to develop its foreign policy, said Lee Su-seok.

North Korea's underlying motives include a desire to use the talks to gain recognition, and prove to the international community the implementation of sanctions isn't having the intended effect, the analyst said.

Washington has said it is open to dialogue with Pyongyang but only on the condition it is willing to give up its nuclear weapons, a growing stockpile, according to the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, D.C.

In the last 18 months, Pyongyang has added four to six nuclear weapons, analysts said.

 

[Housecarl]

http://johnbatchelorshow.com/schedules/wednesday-15-june-2016

Wednesday 15 June 2016
Air Date: June 15, 2016

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Co-hosts: Gordon Chang, Forbes.com & Daily Beast. Dr. David M. Livingston, The Space Show.

Hour One

Wednesday 15 June 2016 / Hour 1, Block A: Fraser Howie, co-author of Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundation of China's Extraordinary Rise, in re: MSCI is a widely-followed EM [emerging market] index; the Chinese domestic mkt wants to be represented in it. MSCI says if you want to be included, you need to let foreigners invest safely, & get their money out. MSCI this time asked for clarification. China refused and it’s correctly been kicked out. Last year, the IMF included RMB in its special drawing rights basket even though it didn't meet the requirement; then China welched on its commitment and now is worse than it was before. China doesn't play by the rules. It's like China’s saying “Yeah yeah, we don't want 11 men on the pitch ‘cause we’re special and we’ll put 12 men in.” This measure isn't anti-China; it’s merely an obligation for all players to play by the rules. Even Pakistan has conformed. The only reason China pulled this is as a power play A-shares are denominated in local currency, not much available to foreigners; and in any case once you get in you can't easily get out. What will happen to the A-shares investments? This MSCI isn't a death blow to the Chinese mkt; it just underlines that it’s not a safe market. China wants all the benefits of intl mkts without following obligatory rules: “No no, I’m China.” The Shanghai index rallied on the news: only because the govt jumped in and supported. This is more proof that it's not a real market. In fact, China’s A share mkt is less free than it was a year ago.

Wednesday 15 June 2016 / Hour 1, Block B: Bob Collins, 37-year veteran advisor to the Department of Defense, in re: North Korea has stored Pn in Yongbin, probably have a fair amount of fissile material. As soon as they can match it with a mobile missile system and hid them under overpasses, in mountains, all around, the sooner . . . They’re basking what may be operation missiles next to the Chinese border. Also cyber attacks; DPRK was just foiled in mounting a massive cyberattack on South Korea, which has put a lot of money and training into protection, First, they were lucky; also, a big problem is a continual effort by N Korea to improve: have three colleges trainig young people and give them excellent comfort. It's only a matter of time. Most of them are not IN North Korea, but in China; where it passes through the Great Firewall.

Sony: 10 TB [terabytes] were exfiltrated into North Korea via China. Getting money is their number-one goal; they barely are surviving and are determined to prop up the regime. Is there a Plan B for China to intervene if the regime collapses? We have to assume so; writings expanding among the Chinese mil elite. China also doesn't want the test of the world to know how completely China has been involved with Pyongyang in nuclear dvpt. Has to sequester scientists and especially technicians. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-southkorea-cyber-idUSKCN0YZ0BE ; http://www.stripes.com/news/report-...-increasing-its-nuclear-capabilities-1.414636

Wednesday 15 June 2016 / Hour 1, Block C: Gordon Chang, in re: Incident in Japanese waters* where the US Pacific fleet commander reportedly last hours China has created antagonism in Chinese intell ship entered Japanese waters (Thurs AM in Asia) a day after the US Pacific commander reportedly discussed security matters there. Chines vessel followed Indian ships that were participating. Chines-Japanese hostility is old, but Xi Jingping is new to this game of baiting. He knew he’d provoke Japan. Why? TO intimidate Japan – unsuccessfully: forcing Japan to spend a great deal more on defense, build up the navy, and grow closer to the US, Now we have a Japan that’s riled up. It was docile, but no longer. The Stennis was tuned away from a Hong Kong port call. This is like the USSR during the Cold War. This was not merely monitoring exercises of neighbors: it comes after a series of other provocations- Chinese planes made a very close pass against a US plane; then a Chinese warship for the first time ever entered waters around Senkakus. This entry was not innocent passage as it needs to move through waters expeditiously and cannot be collecting intell. An overt violation of Japanese sovereignty. . . . Hague Court arbitration panel decision (Philippines vs China) is pending; that’s the larger context. We think there’ll be trouble when it comes down; everyone expects a ruling against China, which probably will do something to change facts on the ground. Expect problems also in the South China Sea. The whole world is watching with deep concern.

Malaysia issued a statement on behalf ASEAN organization (mtg of ASEAN ministers in Kunming) then retracted it three hours later. What did China threaten? Also, Chinese provocation in the Himalayas several days ago. Philippines are weak, eke Vietnam, but Japan is a power.
* http://www.stripes.com/news/chinese-spy-ship-spotted-in-japanese-waters-1.414643

Wednesday 15 June 2016 / Hour 1, Block D: Bill Roggio, LongWarJournal, in re: Any news from Afghanistan anent the Orlando shooter? His parents long ago were from here. Khorasan Province is the IS caliphate network in Nangahar Province in Afgh, and extend out to Uzbekistan and around Central Asia. Taliban ruthlessly hunted them don do they’re hiding out in caves and he like. Now it's released Cubs of the Caliphate photos, or two dozen small children holding up signs, raising one finger, and the Islamic flag, supposedly celebrating the Orlando massacre. Once such a thing gets in to any jihadist feed in social media, it rapidly propagates around he world. Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan: it split in half over the emir’s saying he was sceptical about the status of Mullah Omar, who’d died two years before [??]. When half split away last summer, one side took the whole media apparatus to the real distress of the other side.

Taliban seizes a district in Uruzgan The Taliban controls one of Uruzgan's five districts, and contests the other four. The shadow governor for Uruzgan said in April his forces would emphasize complete control of the province. A significant central province; Taliban call it strategic terrain, as does the Afgh govt. The Taliban shadow governor says: We control everything but the district centers – the administration! We’ll take them. The US was providing air support against them but lost. . . . Afghanistan’s security is collapsing at the center.

Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan faction emerges after group’s collapse After Usman Ghazi, the last emir of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, joined the Islamic State's Khorasan province, the group split in two and a core cadre remained loyal to the Taliban and al Qaeda.
IS' Khorasan Province Shows "Joy" of Children for Orlando, Magnanville Attacks

Hour Two
Wednesday 15 June 2016 / Hour 2, Block A: Harry Kazianis, senior Fellow for Defense Policy at the Center for the National Interest, in re: Ten hours ago in Kunming, in China, an annual ASEAN trade organization mtg, where everyone agreed to be friendly. Regionally, 14.5% of trade comes from China; the list includes Laos & Cambodia, which always vote with China; and Indonesia, and other nations more or less allied with the US. What occurred is odd; ASEAN issued a strong statement, via Malaysia: “Serious concern” anent “China’s militarization” – and it was retracted within hours, which led individuals to come forward and rebuke and taunt China. China got ambushed. All these states that have sovereignty in the South China Sea while China bulldozes over it, have been looking for a way to “get in China’s face” and say building fake islands there is wrong putting in missile defense systems there is wrong. Oddly Malaysia has been a good friend to China, yet it issued he statement, Before that, the Singaporean foreign minister was supposed to meet his Chinese counterpart but pulled out hours in advance. China has pushed this region almost to a limit. Another stat: $366 bil in trade between China and ASEAN. China played the economic cared when it played games with rare earths, and also trade and travel linkages with Manila; but there exists a mindset shift. China wants to dominate; neighbors are waking up, maybe too late. Chinese spy ship follows Indian ships in the Malabar exercise. Recall Chinese warships on Jun 9 for the first time ever in the Senkakus. China is ramping up attacks everywhere at once. This is spectacular. “Once is happenstance, twice is circumstance; three times is enemy action.” A showdown could bring in many outside powers – very dangerous. Btw, ASEAN seems to have done this entirely without the US. [Wow.] http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/asean-retracts-south/2871648.html

Wednesday 15 June 2016 / Hour 2, Block B: Rick Fisher, senior Fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, in re: Scifi “Falling skies.” The real thing; the Chiinese military space station is falling in a way that doesn't sound healthy to whoever is underneath, Chinese plans to de-orbit their junk? If so, they haven't notified the world. Tiangung1 is said to be in a state where they’ve stopped collecting data from it. It's thought that it’ll land late this year or early next year – where’ll you be? There seems to be a little fuel left on board, which is being saved for the last moments. China has plans for a new space station to be launched from Wencheng Space Station in Hainan Island. Modules said to be completed by 2022 or 2023. About when US and partners are deciding whether or not to continue ISS with its partners, China will be starting afresh. Also, successor space stations. Current modular structure lends itself to mil utility; can turn civilian space station into a mil one very quickly. Will start with a space telescope flying with it, can dock and undock, Expect a second or third, might look like a telescope but carry a very different payload.

China displayed a laser-guided 220m artillery rocket; have an inexpensive rocket for sale that can take out gazillion-dollar ships, Range of 60km, but can it at speeds up to 30km per hour. Terminally-guided ballistic missile. Can be used from a ship to assist in attacks against the shore (e.g., Taiwan). China is designing weapons for its aggression. Artilery laser-guided round for the South China Sea. http://www.space.com/33140-china-tiangong-1-space-lab-falling-to-earth.html

http://johnbatchelorshow.com/schedules/tuesday-14-june-2016

Tuesday 14 June 2016
Air Date: June 14, 2016

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior advisor; & Cumulus Media radio

Hour Two

Tuesday 14 June 2016 / Hour 2, Block A: Stephen F. Cohen, Prof. Emeritus of Russian Studies/History/Politics at NYU and Princeton; also Board of American Committee for East-West Accord (eastwestaccord.com); in re: The ceremony of the new cold war has taken the face of troops on borders. SFC: When I was young I studied Marx, who was desperate to get volume one out before the imminent revolution. I feel somewhat the same: I hold US policy 80% responsible as we creep toward war with Russia – not so much because of Ukraine. Syria, etc, but the compression by NATO of Russia from sea to sea. Although NATO presents this as “exercises” and rotational, it's intended to be the creation of a permanent, very-large-scale garrison presence, incl missile defense, radars. At the very least in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and probably Poland and Romania – and now talk of garrisons in Norway and Sweden, which aren’t even in NATO; this is unprecedented. Not surprisingly, Russia is countermobilizing — shifting its military power from central Russia to western Russia. Yesterday, Putin called up the Russian reservists, who normally are called up only for practice. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – constant worry about nuclear war ; they set a little clock , How close are we to midnight? It's now at two minutes to midnight – because of the mil build-up on Russia’s borders Vladimir Rothkin (US citizen) has taught at Harvard and elsewhere wrote a blog: “Russians are saying that Putin needs to be more assertive or aggressive; are calling for Russia to have sent its mil in to Ukraine years ago, and in Georgia in 2008 should just have gone on and taken Tbilisi, as bing I Moscow’s back yard. As for currently: Putin shd target medium-range missiles on American missile installations. [cf, US missile in Turkey].” Putin hails from St Petersburg. This eqpt is within artillery range of St Petersburg.

Tuesday 14 June 2016 / Hour 2, Block B: Stephen F. Cohen, eastwestaccord.com, in re: Rex Tillerson, ExxonMobil CEO, attending a big dinner in Peter with the head of Rosneft. WH saying that NATO is aggressing because Putin wants to invade easterly in order to destabilize and destroy the European Union (which is openly nuts). “Weaponized information”: the anti-Putin forces accuse him of this. Of course, all sides have been doing this for decades. In truth, Putin has been cleaving as well as he can to soft power.

Tuesday 14 June 2016 / Hour 2, Block C: Stephen F. Cohen, eastwestaccord.com, in re: . . . FBI went to meet Tsarnaev mother , who said her son was a fine person, and FBI left it at that, thereafter ignoring formal Russian warnings about Tsarnaevs. In vetting possible jihadists, one important source of help could be Russia. American officials’s failure to utilize this resource is an impeachable offense.

Tuesday 14 June 2016 / Hour 2, Block D: Stephen F. Cohen, eastwestaccord.com, in re: Russia.

http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_132275.htm NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg briefed media on Monday (13 June 2016) on the agenda of this week’s meetings of NATO Defence Ministers. “Over the next two days, we will take a series of important decisions to strengthen our collective defence and enhance our cooperation with partners,” said Mr. Stoltenberg. He stressed that these decisions will pave the way for the Warsaw Summit in July.

“We will agree to deploy by rotation four robust multinational battalions in the Baltic states and in Poland,” said the Secretary General. He underlined that these battalions are part of a much bigger shift in NATO’s defence and deterrence posture, including a larger NATO Response Force, a new Spearhead Force and 8 new small headquarters in the eastern part of the Alliance. “All together this strikes the right balance between a greater ability to reinforce, and boost our forward presence,” he added.

NATO has also taken action to ensure that Allied troops can move faster across Europe, for exercises or reinforcements, if needed. “Last month, the Spearhead Force conducted an exercise which showed how far we have come. One thousand troops and four hundred military vehicles moved from Spain to Poland within four days,” said Mr. Stoltenberg. He stressed that NATO will continue to work to improve freedom of movement for Allied troops and equipment, because speed can make the difference when a crisis emerges.

The Secretary General underscored that Allies must spend more on defence to sustain this shift in NATO’s defence posture. He highlighted that, following a long decline in defence spending, 2015 was the first year after many when the Alliance registered a small increase in defence spending. “Our estimates for 2016 show a further increase,” said Mr. Stoltenberg. The annual real change stands at around 1.5 percent, an increase of over 3 billion dollars, with twenty Allies planning to spend more on defence in real terms this year. “So this is real progress. After many years of going in the wrong direction, we are starting to go into the right direction,” he said.

This week, Defence Ministers will also discuss how NATO can expand its efforts to project stability beyond its borders, strengthening local forces in the fight against terrorism. “We will also consider providing AWACS surveillance planes to support the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL,” said the Secretary General. He added that ministers will assess what more NATO can do in the wider Mediterranean Sea, for instance in support of the European Union’s Operation Sophia.

On Tuesday, Ministers will discuss the future of cooperation between NATO and the European Union, together with High Representative Mogherini and Ministers from Finland and Sweden. Mr. Stoltenberg noted that ministers will also explore additional assistance for Ukraine and Georgia. “On Wednesday, we will meet the Ukrainian Defence Minister in the NATO-Ukraine Commission. We are concerned about the security situation, amid continued ceasefire violations in eastern Ukraine,” said Mr. Stoltenberg.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...e-opposition-research-on-trump/2016/06/14/cf0

For audio please go to site...

 

[Housecarl]

Apparently, dozens of Americans must be massacred every so often ...
Started by Dozdoats‎, Yesterday 08:33 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...f-Americans-must-be-massacred-every-so-often-...


For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://geopoliticalfutures.com/facing-some-truths-behind-the-florida-massacre/

Facing Some Truths Behind the Florida Massacre

June 15, 2016 In confronting terrorism, the U.S. needs to decide whether it is at war and who the enemy is.

By George Friedman

The slaughter in Orlando, Florida on Sunday once again raises the question of what we should do about attacks like this. But before that, we must answer a more fundamental question: Was this a criminal act or an act of war? Answering that question is the key to determining the appropriate response.

If these are criminal acts, then the criminals must be punished for their actions. If these are acts of war, then the enemy forces must be found and destroyed, not based on what they might or might not have done, but in order to destroy the enemy before they can strike again.

Since 9/11, the United States government has failed to resolve this issue. Immediately after the attack, President George W. Bush committed to bringing those who planned the attack to justice, implying that this was a criminal act.

At the same time, he sent the U.S. military into Afghanistan to wage war on the Afghan government, its army and al-Qaida, which was operating under the government’s protection. That implied that this was war.

The rules of war and the rules of criminal justice are vastly different, as is their intent. Had President Franklin D. Roosevelt said in his speech after Pearl Harbor that he intended to bring everyone who planned the Pearl Harbor attack to justice, he would have completely missed the point. It was not the pilots or the staff officers who had committed a crime. It was the Empire of Japan, as Roosevelt put it, that had committed an act of war.

Bush further confused the issue by speaking of the Axis of Evil – Iraq, Iran and North Korea – saying that was in some sense responsible for 9/11. He also spoke of a Global War on Terror. Terror is a weapon of war. It is designed to terrorize the citizens of a country into either paralysis or overthrowing their government. The Germans bombed Britain for that reason in World War II. The allies bombed Germany for the same reason.

As a means of warfighting, terrorism is similar to tanks or aircraft carriers in that they are tools of war, rather than the enemy itself. Imagine if Roosevelt had declared a global war on aircraft carriers, since carrier-based planes had attacked Pearl Harbor.

Bush never clarified whether we were at war, and completely confused the issue of who we were at war with. He wisely did not want to declare war on the Islamic world, because it contains 1.7 billion people and the likelihood of defeating that many with a standing army of about 500,000 troops is remote.

In addition, as he knew, only a tiny fraction of the 1.7 billion people were interested in and capable of carrying out terrorist attacks. So, he focused on al-Qaida, and then further complicated the issue by invading Iraq, whose secular president, Saddam Hussein, was obsessed at the time with survival, and was unlikely to form an alliance with the jihadists.

The conceptual confusion was further compounded by President Barack Obama. He not only pointed out the obvious, which is that the United States is not hostile to all Muslims, but also tried to take the position that the terrorists’ proclaimed belief in Islam was incidental to their actions.

Others who take this position have also pointed out that guns in the United States kill more people than terrorism.

Obama’s view that Islam was incidental to terrorism was in fact a repetition of Bush’s point on the Axis of Evil. The target included all terrorists, Muslim or not. As for the argument on guns verses terrorism, it is both true and vague in its intent. It seemed to be saying that terrorism is more tolerable because of the prevalence of gun violence. But it is not clear what change of action is being recommended.

It is now almost 15 years since 9/11 and we still have not answered the core questions: Are we at war or fighting criminals? And if we are at war, who with exactly? To distinguish between crime and war, you have to look at intent, not means. The means may be the same but the goal is different. Criminals pursue money or are unbalanced and pursue fantasies. Terrorists are pursuing political ends, and therefore, their attacks are consistent with the definition of war. War is a continuation of politics by different means. War is intimately bound up with politics. Crime is not. There are always gray areas, but this definition works.

What are the political ends of Islamist terrorists? Since the rise of al-Qaida, there has been a clear and consistent goal: to overthrow “hypocritical” Muslim states and replace them with jihadist regimes that would create a united global Muslim state called the caliphate.

To achieve this end, the jihadists need to do two things. The first is to demonstrate to the Muslim masses that they have been betrayed by their own governments, and that they have the power to seize control of their own destinies.

The second goal is to drive the United States, Europe and other non-Muslim powers out of the Islamic world. Terrorism is intended to drain the enemy of its will to continue and force withdrawal. This is the same goal of the mass bombings of World War II.

The two goals mesh, because terrorism does not require major organization or resources. It simultaneously strikes at the enemy, and empowers all its supporters who wish to be empowered.

Given this end, there is no question that terrorism is an act of war and not a crime. The problem is defining the enemy. We know that all Muslims are not jihadists. We also know that all jihadists are Muslims.

In this war, the jihadists are hard to identify for the same reasons that they are in utter violation of the Geneva Convention. The Geneva Convention acknowledges the right of partisans – guerrillas – to be treated as soldiers. However, they must meet two criteria. First, they must carry their weapons openly. Second, they must wear clothing that identifies them as warriors.

The jihadists do neither of these things and, therefore, have no rights under the Geneva Convention – another point that has been utterly confused in Western debates. But giving up rights under the Geneva Convention does not give jihadists claim to the criminal justice system. In World War II, when soldiers were caught infiltrating out of uniform, the normal punishment on all sides was execution after a casual court martial. There was no concept that violators of the Geneva Convention had legal protections beyond military justice.

At the same time, the advantage of being out of uniform and hiding weapons was understood on all sides. The jihadists have a tremendous advantage in this. Since their primary goal is maximum casualties, explosives and rifles are the weapons of choice.

Since the goal of a war is to render the enemy incapable of waging war, that goal can be thwarted by covert operations. This strategy puts the defender in the position of waiting for the next attack and having to defend an impossibly large set of targets, or identify enemy operatives who have blended into the general population or are drawn from it. The best way to do this is to track known jihadist operatives and see who they make contact with.

Therefore, the Islamic State avoids contact with potential operatives. Instead, it encourages those with little or no direct contact with IS to design and execute terror attacks that maximize casualties and thereby shake the target country. Like all ideological movements, it is possible to both know the goal of the organization and participate in its realization in some way without having contact with the main organization.

This strategy was learned from the defeats of the Palestinian groups in the 1970s and 1980s. Modeled after Soviet-style organizations, these groups were self-enclosed and highly secure. The problem was that even the most secure organization could be penetrated.

What al-Qaida learned, and IS grasps even better, is that the cost of carrying out terrorism is organization. They must accept a degree of chaos in return for operations that are frequently unguided by the center. However, the lone wolves are alone only in the sense that they lack personal contact. They are deeply in contact with the ideology.

This brings us back to the challenge of defining who the West is at war with. The obvious answer is that the West is at war with the jihadist strand of Islam. The problem is that this strand is not only covert, but also embedded in the Muslim community as a whole.

This again proves why the Geneva Convention does not protect jihadists. In the Franco-Prussian War, French snipers hid in crowds to shoot at Germans. The Germans fired back hitting civilians. The framers of the Geneva Convention held the French, not the Germans, responsible for the carnage. Using civilians as cover for operations is a violation of the Geneva Convention.

It is nice to have the law on your side, but it doesn’t solve the problem of how to wage this war. The enemy is indistinguishable from friends. You can only identify the jihadists by intruding deeply into the community, and beyond. You can intercept phone calls, but hardly any will provide clues and, given the volume of calls, they cannot all be intercepted. You can also plant operatives in mosques. There are many actions that can be taken – but all are obnoxious to American values.

It should be remembered that, in the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln suspended the right to habeas corpus. During World War II, Roosevelt imposed intensive censorship and spied on Congress. But all knew that at some point these wars would end. Fighting the jihadist war will likely take a long time, and suspending liberties for long would change the character of the Republic. It might also generate hostility towards the government, a goal of the jihadists.

This is merely one of the challenges that must be debated. But it cannot be debated until we face some truths. This is a war and jihadists are the enemy. Not all Muslims are jihadists, but all jihadists are Muslims. There are other terrorist groups and other causes of death, but none have as extravagant plans for doing us harm as the jihadists.

Giving up liberties may be too high a price, but we should be honest in admitting the price we will pay. In addition, some tactics may seem plausible, but will not solve the problem in the end. Stopping Muslims from coming to the country, for example, may seem reasonable to some, but a child could get around that barrier. We must be honest that the war, which has raged for 15 years, will go on for a long time to come. We can bring our troops home. But jihadists may follow them. All of these things must be honestly considered. But we like to lie to ourselves, and that’s the real enemy.

 

[Housecarl]

British Labor MP Jo Cox Shot By Assailant Who Allegedly Shouted "Britain First" - Live Fee
Started by fairbanksb‎, Today 07:16 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...edly-Shouted-quot-Britain-First-quot-Live-Fee


So much for gun and knife control.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-politics-attack-idUSKCN0Z21LS

World | Thu Jun 16, 2016 9:24am EDT
Related: World

British lawmaker shot in attack at advice surgery: Channel 4

A British lawmaker was shot and stabbed in her constituency in northern England on Thursday, Channel 4 News reported.

Media reports said Jo Cox, who is from the opposition Labour Party, had been attacked as she prepared to hold an advice surgery for constituents in Birstall near Leeds, that another man had been stabbed and a gunman was at large.

BBC radio reported that Cox had been taken by air ambulance to a nearby hospital.

There was no immediate comment from West Yorkshire Police.

British lawmakers are currently not in parliament ahead of next week's referendum on whether Britain should remain in the European Union.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by Estelle Shirbon)

 

[vestige]

So much for gun and knife control.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-politics-attack-idUSKCN0Z21LS

World | Thu Jun 16, 2016 9:24am EDT
Related: World

British lawmaker shot in attack at advice surgery: Channel 4

A British lawmaker was shot and stabbed in her constituency in northern England on Thursday, Channel 4 News reported.

Media reports said Jo Cox, who is from the opposition Labour Party, had been attacked as she prepared to hold an advice surgery for constituents in Birstall near Leeds, that another man had been stabbed and a gunman was at large.

BBC radio reported that Cox had been taken by air ambulance to a nearby hospital.

There was no immediate comment from West Yorkshire Police.

British lawmakers are currently not in parliament ahead of next week's referendum on whether Britain should remain in the European Union.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by Estelle Shirbon)

Get used to it honey...

you asked for it.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...-border-with-north/ar-AAh6Wm2?ocid=spartandhp

S. Korea holds navy drill near disputed border with North

AFP
5 hrs ago

South Korea on Thursday kicked off a live-fire naval exercise near its disputed sea border with North Korea -- a move likely to fan already elevated military tensions with Pyongyang.

The three-day exercise in the Yellow Sea is aimed at practising responses to simulated incursions by North Korean vessels and aircraft, the South's navy said in a statement.

The manoeuvres will involve 20 naval ships, including an Aegis destroyer, as well as 10 aircraft including anti-submarine helicopters.

"If the enemy commits provocative acts again in the Yellow Sea, we are prepared to act swiftly, precisely and sufficiently in order to turn the site of provocation into their own tombs," the navy statement said.

The two Koreas fought bloody naval battles near the sea border known as the Northern Limit Line (NLL) in 1999, 2002 and 2009.

The North refuses to recognise the NLL, which was drawn unilaterally by the US-led United Nations Command at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

In 2010, South Korea blamed North Korea for the sinking of one of its warships near the Yellow Sea border, in which 46 sailors died.

Live-fire drills in the area invariably spark an angry reaction from the North.

Cross-border tensions have been running high ever since North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch the following month.

 

[Housecarl]

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ntensify’-global-attacks-not-losing-influence

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...-isis-working-to-send-operatives-to-west.html

Threats

CIA director’s chilling warning: ISIS to ‘intensify’ global attacks, not losing influence

Published June 16, 2016 · FoxNews.com
Comments 400

CIA Director John Brennan, in a chilling warning on the Islamic State’s growing influence, told lawmakers Thursday that U.S.-led efforts to strike at the terror group have not hampered its “terrorism capability and global reach” – a message that stands in stark contrast to President Obama’s more upbeat assessment earlier this week.

Brennan, testifying in a rare open hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee, said ISIS likely will “intensify” terror attacks around the world even as its core fighters come under pressure in Iraq and Syria, including by deploying operatives for further attacks on the West.

“The group is probably exploring a variety of means for infiltrating operatives into the West, including in refugee flows, smuggling routes, and legitimate methods of travel,” Brennan said.

The testimony offered unnerving context to Obama's comments on Tuesday. The president said the anti-ISIS campaign “is firing on all cylinders” and the group “is under more pressure than ever before,” while conceding they’re gaining traction elsewhere.

Brennen echoed the president in detailing the group’s territorial losses in Iraq and Syria. He said they’re struggling to replenish fighters and getting squeezed financially.

However, he said ISIS is “resilient” and likely will adapt, and warned coalition gains in Iraq and Syria are not blunting its capacity to carry out deadly operations abroad.

"Unfortunately, despite all our progress against ISIL on the battlefield and in the financial realm, our efforts have not reduced the group's terrorism capability and global reach,” Brennan testified. “The group's foreign branches and global networks can help preserve its capacity for terrorism regardless of events in Iraq and Syria. In fact, as the pressure mounts on ISIL, we judge that it will intensify its global terror campaign to maintain its dominance of the global terrorism agenda.”

Further, he said the terror massacre in Orlando last weekend – the worst U.S. homeland attack since 9/11 – shows ISIS is still working to inspire attacks by sympathizers who have no direct links to the group.

He said ISIS is gradually cultivating its various branches into an interconnected network. The branch in Libya is likely the most advanced and most dangerous, he said, warning that Libya could become another base to carry out attacks in Europe and other locations.

He said ISIS is trying to increase its influence elsewhere in Africa as well.

Still, he said the U.S.-led coalition has made progress combating the group, which has had to surrender large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria and has lost some of its leaders in airstrikes. ISIS has struggled to replenish its ranks of fighters, Brennan said, because fewer of them are traveling to Syria and others have defected.

He said the group's ability to raise money has also been curtailed, although the group still continues to generate at least tens of millions of dollars in revenue each month, mostly from taxation and from sales of crude oil.

Like Obama, he said the group is on defense.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-N...ts-at-disputed-maritime-border/4171466082707/

North Korea increases patrol boats at disputed maritime border

South Korea confirmed the North has also installed radar on a nearby island.

By Elizabeth Shim Contact the Author | June 16, 2016 at 9:26 AM

SEOUL, June 16 (UPI) -- North and South Korea are increasing the number of patrol boats at a disputed maritime border, heightening tensions.

Pyongyang had already dispatched a total of five patrol boats near the Northern Limit Line, South Korean news network MBN reported Thursday.

North Korea recently added another boat, most likely to protect fishing rights during crab season, a South Korean military official said.

The presence of patrol boats has increased with the number of North Korean fishing boats. North Korean fishermen may be stepping up activity in response to an ordinance from Kim Jong Un to raise productivity, South Korean news service News 1 reported.

Pyongyang is also monitoring the South from Ari Island, located less than eight miles from the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, which was shelled in 2010.

A South Korean military official said Seoul has confirmed the installation of radar on the island, according to News 1.

The official also said about 200 North Korean fishing boats are active near the NLL, a near doubling of the number of boats from 2015.

"As the number of fishing boats have grown, North Korea patrolling has become more vigorous," the official said.

Some of the patrol boats were being deployed to chase away Chinese fishing boats, according to local South Korea press.

North Korea has also built a base to accommodate about 70 hovercraft, less than 40 miles away from the NLL, MBN reported.

Chinese boats that were fishing illegally in South Korean and neutral waters around the NLL have moved out since the United Nations Command in the South took joint action, according to Seoul.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-N...-prison/2691466005987/?spt=mps&or=1&sn=tn_int

'El Chapo' prison guard killed; Mexico deploys 300 troops to guard prison

By Andrew V. Pestano Follow @AVPLive9 Contact the Author | June 15, 2016 at 1:24 PM Comments 27

MEXICO CITY, June 15 (UPI) -- A Mexican soldier who guarded drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was recently found dead showing signs he was tortured in the Ciudad Juarez border town.

Mexico's Secretariat of National Defense announced that the body of 20-year-old Jorge Mauricio Melendez Herrera was found on Friday. A forensic expert determined he was killed from a blow to the back of the neck, but was also stabbed multiple times.

Melendez Herrera was part of a team that guarded the outside of a Ciudad Juarez prison where Guzman is currently held as he appeals a U.S. extradition.


RELATED
8 Mexican officers accused of helping 'El Chapo' escape could be freed

The Mexican government deployed 300 additional soldiers to increase security at the prison. The drug lord twice escaped from Mexican maximum security prisons. At least 11 Mexican security prison guards and officials are facing charges related to Guzman's escape.

Guzman's Sinaloa Cartel is credited with dominating the illegal drug market in nearly the entire United States. "El Chapo" -- meaning "The Short One" or "shorty" -- so dubbed because of his 5-foot-6-inch frame, was detained in Guatemala in 1993 and then extradited to Mexico to face murder and drug trafficking charges.

He escaped from prison in 2001 by hiding in a laundry cart after bribing prison guards, and was re-captured in February 2014. He was captured in the city of Los Mochis in his home state of Sinaloa on Jan. 8 after escaping from Mexico's Altiplano Federal Prison on July 11.

Related UPI Stories
•Mexico approves extradition of accused trafficker 'El Chapo' to United States
•FBI seizes $2.3M from drug group linked to 'El Chapo's' Sinaloa Cartel
•'El Chapo's' Honduras henchman 'The Wizard's' 6 companies, tourist restaurant seized

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-federalism-idUSKCN0Z21FN

World | Thu Jun 16, 2016 10:30am EDT
Related: World, Syria

Federal plan for northern Syria advances with U.S.-backed forces

BEIRUT | By Tom Perry

As an alliance of U.S.-backed militias advance against Islamic State in northern Syria, their political allies are making progress of their own toward a new federal system of government which they hope will take root in newly captured areas.

The autonomous federation being planned by Syrian Kurdish parties and their allies is taking shape fast: a constitution should be finalised in three months, and possibly sooner, to be followed quickly by elections, a Kurdish official said.

While Kurdish groups insist this is no separatist bid, it is set to redraw the map as U.N. diplomacy fails to make any progress toward ending the war that has splintered Syria into a patchwork of separately-run areas.

In so doing, it is likely to deepen the concerns of NATO member Turkey about growing Kurdish influence in northern Syria, a region whose once unfamiliar Kurdish name - Rojava - has now entered the Middle East's political lexicon.

The plan had taken on even greater significance since the Syria Democratic Forces alliance, which is spearheaded by the Kurdish YPG militia, mounted a rapid new advance westwards this month into Islamic State's last foothold at the Turkish border.

It holds out the prospect of more areas being included in the federation, plans for which were first unveiled in March.

The idea of newly-captured territory joining the "Democratic Federal System for Rojava - Northern Syria" was discussed last week with members of a local council set up to run the IS-held city of Manbij, a target of the campaign.

"We gave them an idea about the plan we are working on, and expressed to them our desire for Manbij to be part of the democratic federal area after its liberation," said Hadiya Yousef, a senior Kurdish official who is co-chair of an assembly that is overseeing the project.

"There was an optimistic view toward the matter. They liked the plan," she told Reuters in an interview. But she added that given the temporary nature of the council, any decision would have to be taken later on by a more permanent one.

An official with the Manbij city council, who declined to be named, told Reuters they expected the federal system to be tabled to them but they were not authorized to make such a decision. It would be up to the expanded council to be formed at a later date to decide on such matters, the official in the council's media office said.

Kurds are scattered in Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq, where the Kurdistan Regional Government represents the closest the Kurds have come to a state of their own.


Related Coverage
› Air strikes hit rebel-held parts of Aleppo hours into truce -Observatory


YPG FIREPOWER AND INFLUENCE

The political federation for northern Syria builds on three self-ruled regions carved out by the YPG since Syria descended into conflict in 2011 in an uprising to topple President Bashar al-Assad. It has already grown, expanding last year to include the town of Tel Abyad that was captured from Islamic State by the YPG in October.

The YPG has been the most effective partner for the United States against Islamic State in Syria. Yet Turkey views it as a terrorist group due to its ties to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is waging an insurgency in southeast Turkey.

The SDF's establishment last year resulted in Arab militias formally joining the YPG in the U.S.-backed campaign against IS - an important consideration as they push into areas that are majority Arab.

But while the YPG has publicly take a back seat, analysts say it still wields the most firepower and influence.

Syrian Kurdish groups have made no secret of their aim to link up their two autonomous regions, or cantons, in northeastern Syria with one further west - Afrin. All that's preventing them is the 80 km stretch of territory at the Turkish border held by IS near Manbij and further west by Turkey-backed rebel groups that are hostile to the YPG.

The Kurdish politicians at the heart of the effort say it will safeguard the rights of all ethnic groups, allowing communities to govern themselves and serving as a model for an eventual solution to the Syrian war.

But it has encountered broad opposition, including the United States, the Syrian government in Damascus, and the Syrian opposition to Assad.


Related Coverage
› U.N.'s Egeland sees possible turning point as aid reaches beseiged Syrian areas

NO AGREEMENT YET ON FLAG

Yousef said meetings had been held in the United States, Russia and Europe to explain the plan, and to assure them that the aim was not to establish an independent state.

Letters had also been sent directly to U.S. President Barack Obama and the U.N. envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, who left the main Syrian Kurdish political party, the PYD, out of peace talks earlier this year in line with Turkey's wishes.

"We expect acceptance of this plan and we are working to win international, domestic, and regional support," Yousef said.

Speaking by telephone from Syria, she said the constitution to be known as "the social contract" was nearly complete.

Any area wishing to join the federal system would have to agree to this contract, whose features include equal rights for women that will guarantee joint leadership of all administrative bodies - and a form of socialist economy.

Pending issues included the design of a new flag to be flown alongside the Syrian flag, the location of the main legislative council - to be known as the Peoples' Conference - and the administrative borders of areas in the new system.

"Within three months we should have finished all preparations and frameworks for the social contract," she said.

Once approved by the 151-member assembly which Yousef co-chairs, preparations will start for elections to take place three months later.

They have yet to decide which will be held first - elections for the Peoples' Conference or to regional assemblies. "The entire process will take six months and perhaps less," she said.


(Writing by Tom Perry, editing by Peter Millership)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-bookseller-idUSKCN0Z21GG

World | Thu Jun 16, 2016 8:21am EDT
Related: World

Hong Kong bookseller says associate 'abducted' by China authorities

One of five Hong Kong booksellers who went missing under mysterious circumstances last year said on Thursday he had been detained for more than eight months by Chinese authorities and that another of the five had been abducted from Hong Kong.

Lam Wing-kee told a news conference his colleague, Lee Bo, who went missing from Hong Kong, had been abducted and said "cross-border enforcement actions" by mainland Chinese authorities in Hong Kong were "not acceptable".

The five booksellers, linked to the shop Causeway Bay Books, went missing from late last year. All of them later surfaced in China in police custody.

Chinese authorities have declined to clarify key details of the disappearances but said law enforcement officials would never do anything illegal.


(Reporting by Clare Baldwin, James Pomfret and Stella Tsang)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/16/i...e-bombers-as-libya-stronghold-poised-to-fall/

Daily Caller News Foundation

ISIS Deploys Waves Of Suicide Bombers As Libya Stronghold Poised To Fall

Russ Read
National Security/Foreign Policy Reporter
10:58 AM 06/16/2016

Islamic State unleashed two waves of suicide bombers on pro-government Libyan forces in a last ditch defense of the group’s stronghold in the country.

More than 16 pro-government Libyan militia fighters were killed in the assault while continuing to rid ISIS from its coastal stronghold in the city of Sirte. ISIS has killed around 180 Libyan militia fighters since the siege began in May, though the terrorist group has lost significant ground in the last few weeks.

Libyan forces have retaken the city’s air base, port and several barracks. They also secured a symbolic victory by knocking down a stage in the middle of the city that was once used by ISIS to conduct executions and beheadings.

ISIS forces remaining in Sirte have more or less been cornered, but that does not mean they are not dangerous. As has been the case in Iraq, when ISIS loses territory, it can still strike with deadly force through suicide bombings behind enemy lines.

Despite recent losses, ISIS has shown it has the capability to strike anywhere in Libya. Abdel-Aziz Essa, a spokesman for the Misrata hospital located 170 miles from Sirte, told The Associated Press Thursday 10 militia fighters were killed and seven injured in a suicide bombing on the Abu Grain village police station 80 miles west of Sirte.

The militia fighters who died in the attack were allied to the Western-backed Government of National Accord, which has been steadily trying to assert its authority over war-torn Libya.

Ahmed Hadia, the man in charge of the media for the operation against ISIS in Sirte, told the AP ISIS terrorists outside of Sirte “could be a more serious threat than the fighters we are currently surrounding.”

Exact figures as to how many fighters ISIS has in Libya are spotty, but U.S. intelligence estimated in that the group had anywhere between 4,000 to 6,000 men operating in the country. That figure has likely lowered since operations against Sirte began.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/2016/06/17/0200000000AEN20160617000400315.html?a87ac940

N.K. nuclear program top 'blinking-red' problems: CIA chief

2016/06/17 04:06

WASHINGTON, June 16 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's nuclear program is one of the top "blinking-red" problems that should be highlighted at an intelligence briefing for the next U.S. president, along with cyberthreats and terrorism, the CIA chief said Thursday.

"Proliferation is something that we cannot forget about, which is brought into stark relief by the activities of North Korea and Kim Jong-un, and the continued development of his nuclear program and ballistic missile capability," CIA Director John Brennan said at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing.

Speaking in response to a question about the key issues that should be highlighted for the next president, Brennan also picked cyberthreats, terrorism and instability across the Middle East and Africa as other pressing problems.

North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch the following month. The communist nation is also believed to have recently started reprocessing spent nuclear fuel to harvest plutonium for nuclear weapons.

Earlier this week, the Washington-based think tank Institute for Science and International Security said that the North is believed to have produced an additional four to six nuclear weapons since late 2014 and its total arsenal is now estimated at between 13-21 weapons.

"I have never seen a time when our country faced such a wide variety of threats to our national security. If you run your fingers along almost any portion of the map, from Asia Pacific to North Africa, you will quickly find a flashpoint with global implications," Brennan said.

"China is modernizing its military and extending its reach in the South China Sea. North Korea is expanding its nuclear weapons program. Russia is threatening its neighbors and aggressively reasserting itself on the global stage," he said. "And then there is the cyber domain, where states and sub-national actors are threatening financial systems, transportation networks and organizations of every stripe inside government and out."

Asked about the North's cyber capabilities, Brennan said it is what the U.S. should be concerned about.

"I think that the North Koreans have developed a cyber capability, as we've seen some recent incidents over the last year or two, where it has been employed," he said. "I think it is something that we need to be concerned about, given Kim Jong-un's penchant to use whatever capabilities he might have to cause problems."

jschang@yna.co.kr

(END)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.defensenews.com/story/de...rvives-challenge-house-lrso-quigley/85991664/

Nuclear Cruise Missile Survives Challenge in House

Aaron Mehta, Defense News 2:46 p.m. EDT June 16, 2016

WASHINGTON — The House today defeated an amendment to defund a new nuclear cruise missile program for the Air Force, despite a slowly rising chorus of influential voices arguing against the weapon.

Proponents of the Long Range Stand-Off (LRSO) cruise missile say it is a vital part of US strategic posture for the future. The LRSO will replace the Air-Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM) program with 1,000 to 1,100 cruise missiles, representing the Air Force’s stand-off nuclear delivery capability. The ALCM program is scheduled to age out in 2030.

However, critics of the US nuclear modernization strategy have zeroed in on the LRSO as a potential cut, arguing that its similarity to existing US weapons such as the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range mean it could be cut without dramatically altering America’s strategic posture.


DEFENSE NEWS

Is the Pentagon's Budget About To Be Nuked?


In its budget request released in February, the Pentagon requested $95.6 million for the weapons in its fiscal 2017 budget, and $2.2 billion over the next five years. But since then, some in Congress have grown increasingly vocal in questioning the necessity of the weapon.

Today’s defeat of an amendment Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Il., put forth An amendment to cut $75.8 million from the LRSO program, put forth by Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Il., fell 159-261. The vote was largely partisan, although five GOP members voted in favor of the amendment while 26 Democrats voted against it.

But the fact that more than a third of the House voted against a weapon the Pentagon and administration have both described as key to strategic deterrence could signify that the weapon is vulnerable as budgets tighten.

Notably, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wa., was a co-sponsor on Quigley’s amendment. Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, is an influential voice on defense issues. Another influential Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, has said she will try to block funding in the Senate for the weapon.


DEFENSE NEWS

Feinstein Takes Aim at Nuclear Cruise Missile Funding


The ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee's subcommittee on energy and water development, which has oversight over Department of Energy nuclear weapons funding, Freinstein said in April that she believes the long range standoff (LRSO) cruise missile "is unaffordable, and may well be unnecessary."

In an exclusive interview with Defense News, Gen. Mark Welsh, the outgoing Air Force Chief of Staff, defended the need for the LRSO.

“ALCM is already twenty years past its design life and very, very difficult to maintain. We just can’t keep maintaining this fleet of missiles for any period of time. So once ALCM dies on the vine, let’s say ten years from now, fifteen years from now, we are just beginning to field the B-21 [bomber] and we have a whole bunch of B-52s that are now going to have to fly over a target with a gravity bomb,” Welsh said June 13.

“Well, that’s not viable. That’ll never be viable. So we need a standoff weapon for the rest of the bomber fleet to use while the B-21 is doing the penetrating work, and the B-21 won’t be fully fielded until twenty, twenty-five years from now,” he continued. “So you need a weapon for the rest of that bomber fleet to use and the LRSO is the ideal choice unless you make the assumption that we can extend the ALCM another twenty years past this ten year life. That’s just a dangerous assumption.”

Speaking hours before the vote, Gen. David Goldfein, the Air Force Vice Chief who has been nominated to replace Welsh, also defended the need for the LRSO, noting that a Milestone A decision is expected on the weapon in the next two weeks.


DEFENSE NEWS

House Passes Defense Appropriations


Joe Gould contributed to this report.

Email: amehta@defensenews.com

Twitter: @AaronMehta

 

[Housecarl]

In NATO tank competition, U.S. comes up short against Germany (and other NATO countries)
Started by wait-n-seeý, 05-16-2016 07:47 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ort-against-Germany-(and-other-NATO-countries)

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.defensenews.com/story/de...oduction-turns-international-market/86000618/

Lockheed Revives Rocket Launcher Production, Turns To International Market

Jen Judson, Defense News 5:19 p.m. EDT June 16, 2016

PARIS — Lockheed Martin has restarted production lines for its highly mobile artillery rocket launcher and one of the tactical missiles used in the system at a time when the US Army in Europe has no dedicated rocket launchers.

But Lockheed isn’t building new Highly-Mobile Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) for the Army. Instead it is waking up a production line put to sleep for a couple of years — following the end of US production for the Army and Marine Corps — to build new launchers for the United Arab Emirates, according to Lockheed’s tactical missiles and combat maneuver systems vice president, Frank St. John.

The company also reopened its Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) production line to build more missiles for the US Army and other foreign customers, St. John said Wednesday at Eurosatory, one of the world's largest land warfare conferences.

Lockheed is looking for opportunities with customers abroad either wanting to upgrade HIMARS’ predecessor — the M270 — already in the inventory or provide a solution to replace other systems. The company is also planning to upgrade HIMARS with a next-generation fire control system, increased range and lethality and more autonomy to name a few planned improvements.

“We think the market that we sold into 20 years ago is renewing itself because of obsolescence and issues on the old launchers as well as issues with the sub-munitions,” St. John said, “so lots of opportunity.”

Lockheed has talked with the Army about the possibility of the service buying some new HIMARS systems, but it has not decided whether more might be procured down the road.

Meanwhile, Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, the Army’s commander in Europe, told Defense News in an interview last week in Poland during its national military exercise Anakonda, that “I have zero rocket launchers. I have no [Multiple Rocket Launcher System launch pods], no HIMARS, nothing. The only HIMARS we have is a National Guard unit that came over for the exercise.”

Artillery and long-range fires capabilities fell by the wayside while the US Army focused on fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hodges explained, when less emphasis was placed on those capabilities in order to focus on brigades. “I can just tell you the fact that we went down to two brigades, two brigades total in Europe, with no fires brigade because Russia was our partner,” he said.

Russia is no longer a partner and a conflict with the country would mean a need for strong fires capability. But it's an uphill battle getting those requirements in Europe filled, according to Hodges, because the Army is shrinking and convincing Congress to bring over a fires brigade to Europe would not be easy.


DEFENSE NEWS

US Army Grapples With Short-Range Air Defense Gap in Europe


While the Army may not be buying new HIMARS systems any time soon, Hodges said his command will be getting a fires brigade worth of equipment to be kept in Army Prepositioned Stock for rotational forces. “That will help address the concern in case of a crisis,” he said.He estimates that will be put in place within the next three years

European countries upgrading their fires capabilities could help to supplement the Army’s gap.

Currently no European country has procured HIMARS. Jordan, Singapore, Qatar and UAE are the foreign customers of that system.

St. John said HIMARS has reached one million operational hours and has maintained a 99 percent operational fleet readiness over those hours. Launched from HIMARS are both ATACMS and Guided MLRS rockets. Lockheed has produced 3,400 ATACMS and 25,000 GMLRS.

The Army has a roadmap to keep HIMARS in the field until 2050, St. John added.

As Lockheed ventures further out into the international market space, St. John said, it will offer possible opportunities for increased industrial participation within the customer country. "Things like the command and control of the vehicle is something we can work with local partners. On the radio systems that go in the vehicle, almost every country wants their own indigenous radio system integrated, the support vehicles and even the chassis that the launcher is mounted on, these are all things that could be brought by local industry," he said.

When talking to customers abroad, St. John noted that almost every interested country "wants us to integrate this launcher on their truck system . . . The system is flexible and can be integrated on just about any truck."


DEFENSE NEWS

Poland Orders Mortar Vehicles To Enhance Artillery Capability


Lockheed also announced at the Eurosatory exhibition that it had received a $332 million contract from the Army for the 11th production lot of GMLRS rockets.

The contract will build GMLRS alternative warhead rockets, GMLRS unitary rockets and reduced-range practice rockets for the Army, the Marine Corps as well as Israel, Finland, Jordan and Singapore through foreign military sales.

The alternative warhead rocket was designed to comply with cluster munitions policy and the unitary rockets exceed the combat reliability rate, according to Lockheed.

GMLRS was established as an international cooperation between five countries: US, United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy. The customer base has grown to include Japan, Bahrain, Finland, Israel, Jordan, Singapore and the UAE.

“Within the region of conflict that is in the news, HIMARS has been employed, the munitions have been employed, everyone has noticed the ease of use, the reliability of the system, the effects on target and so we are getting a lot of interest out of that region in the system,” St. John said.

Email: jjudson@defensenews.com

Twitter: @JenJudson

-----

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/2016/06/16/two-us-nuke-programs-advance/86002468/

Two US Nuke Programs Set to Advance

Valerie Insinna, Defense News 5:31 p.m. EDT June 16, 2016

WASHINGTON — Two US Air Force nuclear-modernization programs are expected to move forward soon, with the service projecting to release a request for proposals for its Ground Based Strategic Deterrent Program this summer and the clearing of a programmatic hurdle for a new nuclear-armed cruise missile expected within weeks, a key official said.

The White House’s nominee for the next Air Force chief of staff, Gen. David Goldfein, voiced his support for both programs Thursday. Speaking to the Senate Armed Services Committee during his confirmation hearing, he told lawmakers the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) is set for a Milestone A decision in August.

"We expect to put out a request for proposals to industry within the next two weeks,” he said. Also during that time, the service will make a Milestone A decision on the Long Range Stand-Off (LRSO) weapon, a cruise missile that can be conventionally or nuclear armed.

GBSD is planned to replace the Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). In order to save money, the Air Force intends to reuse existing silos, but outfit them with new weapons.

LRSO would replace the Air-Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM), which are slated to phase out of in inventory beginning in 2030. About 1,000 to 1,100 new LRSO missiles are planned to be purchased during the program’s lifetime.

Both GBSD and LRSO have been vulnerable to attack from policymakers who have said the weapons duplicate capabilities found elsewhere, while being expensive to develop and acquire during a budget-constrained environment. This afternoon, for example, House lawmakers defeated an amendment to the defense spending bill that would have defunded the LRSO program in fiscal year 2017.


DEFENSE NEWS

Nuclear Cruise Missile Survives Challenge in House


Air Force leaders, however, remain adamant that both are vital for preserving the U.S. nuclear capability.

“The Air Force fully supports the President’s commitment to maintaining a credible and effective nuclear triad—both GBSD and LRSO are essential to that effort,” Goldfein stated in advance questions made available to lawmakers before his confirmation hearing.

Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., asked whether the Air Force planned to collaborate with the Navy, which is currently modernizing its own nuclear assets.

"I think it's a historic opportunity to leverage research and development, common parts and lessons learned from the Navy's recent Trident modernization program, which can reduce risk, enhance savings—which are critical—and field an extremely capable follow-on in Minuteman III."

There are similarities between how the Navy and Air Force are approaching their nuclear modernization programs, said Goldfein.

"GBSD, one of the aspects of that is that it’s an enterprise approach. So as we field that weapon system, it's actually not just the missile, it's the missile, it’s the launcher, it's the command and control,” he said. "The Navy does the same thing when they look at the submarine force.”

The Air Force released a draft RFP for the GBSD Technology Maturation and Risk Reduction contract in January. According to a solicitation posted online, the service could award up to two contracts spanning 36 months of work. An award is expected in the summer 2017.

Meanwhile, a Defense Acquisition Board review for LRSO was held in May, Air Force spokesman Maj. Rob Leese said in an email. Leese declined to comment on the outcome of the meeting, which provides a forum for Defense Department senior leaders to discuss a program’s status.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.defensenews.com/story/de...c-status-fuels-indian-appetite-arms/85979808/

New Diplomatic Status Fuels Indian Appetite for Arms Trade

Vivek Raghuvanshi, Defense News 11:50 a.m. EDT June 16, 2016

NEW DELHI - Following support from US President Barack Obama earlier this month, India’s entry into the 34-nation Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) is now all but certain, and officials here are drawing up plans to make use of the new status.

India joining the group will pave the way for the purchase of unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV), like the Predator from the United States, according to military officials. In addition, membership would facilitate the export of the Indo-Russian BrahMos supersonic cruise missile to Vietnam in a bid to check China, and also enable India to obtain technologies from overseas to complete development of its homemade UCAV.

"India's entry into MTCR is a mere formality because no participating country has made any formal objections," says Bharat Karnad, research professor at New Delhi based Centre for Policy Research.


DEFENSE NEWS

Skepticism Persists in Strengthened US-India Ties


At the same time, India's chances of entering into the 48-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which oversees global civil nuclear trade, remain uncertain, analysts say.

An official of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), who requested not to be named, said, "As a policy matter, MEA does not discuss both MTCR and NSG negotiations with the media."

When asked why India has been so aggressively pushing its entry into the MTCR, Karnad said: "India's missile technologies are as advanced as any in the world. But India's entry into MTCR will give it a veto over the entry of other aspiring states, such as China. It becomes a leverage against China, which can be wielded in the same way as China has used its membership in NSG to prevent India's entry."

The MTCR aims to curb the spread of unmanned delivery systems for nuclear weapons. However, India was able to get technology transfer for the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile with a range restricted to less than 300 kilometers despite not being a member of the regime.

Karnad says, "India entry into MTCR means it will be free to sell and transfer its very accurate long-range missiles to even non-MTCR countries without attracting sanctions. That is how Russia's collaboration on the BrahMos missile did not attract sanctions."

"India's entry into MTCR will give it the "legitimacy" to export the BrahMos cruise missiles to countries like Vietnam, which has "concerns with China," independent defense analyst Nitin Mehta said.

However, Rajiv Nayan, a senior research associate at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses says New Delhi joining the group “has nothing to do with procurement. BrahMos missiles and drone business are unnecessarily being highlighted by the Indian media. The restriction will be for carrying weapons of mass destruction (WMD), especially through ballistic missiles. Otherwise, for other military purposes, the MTCR merely regulates, does not ban."

On weapons procurement, an Indian Air Force (IAF) official said: "After getting entry into MTCR, India will buy Predator XP and Avenger hunter-killer drones."

The Indian Navy has already expressed interest in buying Predator drones for surveillance, manufactured by U.S. firm General Atomics. "Even the weaponized Predator will be on the wish list of India," the IAF official said.

India's entry into MTCR will also enable it to get technology from overseas for its homemade Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle (UCAV), Mehta, the analyst, said.

India's UCAV, which is called Autonomous Unmanned Research Aircraft (AURA), will be used as a combat aerial system and a bomber. The project is however still in the conceptual stage.

While India joining the MTCR appears to be a done deal, entry into the NSG is not certain because of opposition by China, a member country. Beijing is pushing for Pakistan’s entry into group.

"By becoming a member of the NSG, India will be on the body that virtually makes rules for global nuclear commerce," Nayan said.

 

[Housecarl]

Turkey Says "Massive Escalation" In Syria Imminent *update #280, Saudis launch strikes
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...nent-*update-280-Saudis-launch-strikes/page48

Merde.......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-usa-cable-idUSKCN0Z3087

World | Thu Jun 16, 2016 11:27pm EDT
Related: World, Syria

Dozens of U.S. diplomats urge military strikes against Syria's Assad

WASHINGTON | By John Walcott and Arshad Mohammed


More than 50 State Department diplomats have signed an internal memo sharply critical of U.S. policy in Syria, calling for military strikes against President Bashar al-Assad's government to stop its persistent violations of a civil war cease-fire.

The "dissent channel cable" was signed by 51 mid- to high-level State Department officers involved with advising on Syria policy. It was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The cable calls for "targeted military strikes" against the Syrian government in light of the near-collapse of the cease-fire brokered earlier this year, the Journal reported, citing copies of the cable it had seen.

Military strikes against the Assad government would represent a major change in the Obama administration's longstanding policy of not intervening directly in the Syrian civil war, even as it has called for a political transition that would see Assad leave power.

One U.S. official, who did not sign the cable but has read it, told Reuters the White House remained opposed to deeper American military involvement in the Syrian conflict.

The official said the cable was unlikely to alter that, or shift Obama's focus from the battle against the persistent and spreading threat posed by the Islamic State militant group.

A second source who had read the cable said it reflected the views of U.S. officials who have worked on Syria, some of them for years, and who believe the current policy is ineffective.

"In a nutshell, the group would like to see a military option put forward to put some pressure ... on the regime," said the second source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

While dissent cables are not unusual, the number of signatures on the document is extremely large.

"That is an astonishingly high number," said Robert Ford, who resigned in 2014 as U.S. ambassador to Syria over policy disagreements, and is now at the Middle East Institute, a Washington think tank.

"For the last four years, the working level at the State Department has been urging that there be more pressure on Bashar al-Assad's government to move to a negotiated solution" to Syria's civil war, he said.

Ford noted that this is not the first time the State Department has argued for a more activist Syria policy. In the summer of 2012, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proposed arming and training anti-Assad rebels. The plan, which had backing from other Cabinet officials, was rejected by President Barack Obama and his White House aides.

The dissenting cable discussed the possibility of air strikes but made no mention of adding U.S. ground troops to Syria. The United States has about 300 U.S. special operations forces in Syria carrying out a counter-terrorism mission against Islamic State militants but not targeting the Assad government.

"We are aware of a dissent channel cable written by a group of State Department employees regarding the situation in Syria," State Department spokesman John Kirby said in an email. "We are reviewing the cable now, which came up very recently, and I am not going to comment on the contents."

Kirby said the "dissent channel" was an official forum that allows State Department employees to express alternative views.

Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan told a congressional hearing on Thursday that Assad was in a stronger position than he was a year ago, bolstered by Russian air strikes against the moderate opposition.

Brennan also said Islamic State's "terrorism capacity and global reach" had not been reduced.

The names on the memo are almost all mid-level officials - many of them career diplomats - who have been involved in the administration's Syria policy over the past five years, at home or abroad, the New York Times said.


(Additional reporting by Warren Strobel.; Writing by Eric Beech; Editing by Paul Tait and Nick Macfie)

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World | Thu Jun 16, 2016 10:11pm EDT
Related: World

Russia strikes U.S.-backed rebels in Syria: U.S. official

Russia carried out air strikes on Thursday in southern Syria against rebels battling Islamic State, including forces backed by the United States, a senior U.S. defense official said, adding Washington would raise the matter with Moscow.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, strongly criticized the Russian strikes near al-Tanf, noting that no Russia or Syrian ground forces were in the area at the time -- effectively ruling out an argument of self-defense.

"Russia's latest actions raise serious concern about Russian intentions," the official said.

"We will seek an explanation from Russia on why it took this action and assurances this will not happen again.ý"

Washington has consistently refused to join forces with Russia in Syria against Islamic State ever since Moscow launched its campaign of air strikes in September last year, accusing it of acting solely to prop up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The United States has called on Assad to step down.

Communication between the U.S. and Russian militaries on Syria has been limited to contacts aimed at avoiding an accidental clash as they carry out rival bombing campaigns and small numbers of U.S. forces operate on the ground.


(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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World | Thu Jun 16, 2016 5:59pm EDT
Related: World, Syria

Air strikes hit rebel-held parts of Aleppo hours into truce: monitor


Air strikes hit rebel-held parts of Aleppo just hours into an announced 48-hour ceasefire and fighting carried on in and around the northern Syrian city, monitors and witnesses said.

Aleppo, Syria's largest city before the civil war with a population of more than two million people, has been divided for years into rebel and government sectors. Capturing the city is one of President Bashar al-Assad's key strategic objectives.

Russia, an ally of Syria, announced the truce there on Thursday but did not say which parties had agreed to it. There has been no public comment on the truce announcement from Assad's government or factions fighting his forces.

The Britain-based monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said aerial bombardments and rockets hit a number of neighborhoods in the opposition-held sector, killing seven people.

"There were strikes on a number of residential areas causing fires and damage. The truce was supposed to have come into effect at 12 midnight, but now there is no truce," Bebars Mishal, a civil defense chief working in rebel-held areas of Aleppo told Reuters.

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said an air strike had put one of Aleppo's biggest hospitals out of service.

It was not immediately clear if strikes had hit the 64-bed MSF-supported Omar Bin Abdulaziz hospital directly or nearby, and the extent of damage was not known.


Related Coverage
› Russia says ceasefire regime is still holding in Syria's Aleppo

MSF condemned the continued attacks on healthcare facilities in Syria on its Twitter account and said it was "extremely worried about (the) potential impact on people's access to healthcare" in the city.

Two residents in Aleppo said there had been a number of barrel bombs dropped from helicopters and aerial attacks on Thursday within the city.

The opposition-held part of Aleppo has been cut off in the past two weeks from the outside world as an escalation in air and artillery strikes on the only road in has made journeys perilous and put hundreds of thousands of people under effective siege.

Despite the truce, fierce fighting between government forces and rebels took place overnight around this road, known as the Castello road, with heavy government shelling of the area, the Observatory said.

A Reuters witness said jets and helicopters have been continuously seen in the skies above the Castello road since dawn.

Rebels have since midnight also fired rockets into government-held territory in Aleppo, the Observatory said.

Fighting and air strikes continued in the countryside around Aleppo.

North of Aleppo, air strikes have hit the villages of Anadan, Hayan and Hariyatan. South of Aleppo, ferocious fighting went on between rebels and government and allied forces, which include fighters from Lebanese group Hezbollah. This area has seen territory lost and gained by both sides this week.

Humanitarian organizations said the fighting was making it impossible to deliver aid.

"The longer the fighting continues, the more people will suffer. In Aleppo the situation is already dire and it will get even more difficult," a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross said.


(Reporting by Lisa Barrington and Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Peter Millership, Andrew Heavens, Toni Reinhold)

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.scmp.com/news/china/poli...e-not-police-military-or-even-official-inside

Hong Kong bookseller disappearances

They’re not police, military or even official ... inside the mysterious ‘central investigation team’ that answers only to the Communist Party

PUBLISHED : Friday, 17 June, 2016, 1:06pm
UPDATED : Friday, 17 June, 2016, 6:23pm
Comments: !14

The mysterious “central investigation team” that Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kee believes took him away at the Chinese border reports directly to the central committee of the Communist Party.

The team – which does not belong to any official law enforcement body – holds the same level of importance as investigators looking into important cases, including that of the disgraced former security tsar Zhou Yongkang.

Bookseller Lam Wing-kee reveals explosive details of his mainland China detention, claims Lee Po told him he was ‘taken away from Hong Kong’(Video)

“They do not represent the state security agency, not the police, not the military, but rather a central special investigation group,” Lam said of the people involved in his case on Thursday.

The central special investigation teams are ad-hoc groups of investigators who report directly to the highest level of the Communist Party, which was indicative of how important the leadership regarded that task.

‘I want to tell the whole world – Hongkongers will not bow down before brute force’(

Lam, 61, was one of five Causeway Bay booksellers who went missing last year and later turned up in mainland custody.

Speaking on Thursday – two days after quietly returning hom and asking local police to drop the missing person investigation – he broke his silence by claiming he had been kidnapped at the Shenzhen border last October and was handcuffed and blindfolded as he was abducted.

He also said he went through eight months of mental torture and that the people that detained him had forced him to sign a form, in which he agreed not to inform his family of his situation, and would not hire a lawyer. He said he had signed it as he had no other option.

Full transcript of Lam Wing-kee’s opening statement at his Hong Kong press conference(

The setting up of the mysterious groups is rarely mentioned in official coverage. They are understood to be party organisations, rather than representing specific government offices.

Members of such groups can include cadres from the anti-corruption department, top police officers and even military generals, depending on the nature of the task.

China's disgraced security tsar Zhou Yongkang jailed for life over graft(

The investigations into Zhou and another the former members of the Politburo, ex-Chongqing party boss Bo Xilai were both reportedly carried out by members of the special investigation groups, long before legal procedures in their cases had officially started.

China’s Minister of Supervision Ma Wen has admitted that “special investigation group” had worked on Bo’s case and that she was not the head of the group.

Bo Xilai appeals life sentence for corruption(

The practice of such special investigation groups was common during the Cultural Revolution – a decade-long period of political and social turmoil, which started in 1966. The investigation of former Chinese president Liu Shaoqi was handled by members of an ad-hoc investigation group that reported directly to the top leadership of the party.

Many of these mysterious groups were capable of bypassing the law. Liu died while custody in 1969.

Fourteen such groups were set up between 1967 to 1971, according to the memoir of Wu Faxian, a former Politburo member, who was jailed in 1971, the sixth year of the revolution.

Today, the special investigation teams are responsible for handling major, top-priority cases of the party, which in recent years have mostly concerned very senior corrupt officials.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2016/06/17/taking_nuclear_weapons_to_the_bank_111914.html

Taking Nuclear Weapons to the Bank

By Andrew Cockburn
June 17, 2016

This article originally appeared in TomDispatch.

These days, lamenting the apparently aimless character of Washington’s military operations in the Greater Middle East has become conventional wisdom among administration critics of every sort. Senator John McCain thunders that “this president has no strategy to successfully reverse the tide of slaughter and mayhem” in that region. Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies bemoans the “lack of a viable and public strategy.” Andrew Bacevich suggests that “there is no strategy. None. Zilch.”

After 15 years of grinding war with no obvious end in sight, U.S. military operations certainly deserve such obloquy. But the pundit outrage may be misplaced. Focusing on Washington rather than on distant war zones, it becomes clear that the military establishment does indeed have a strategy, a highly successful one, which is to protect and enhance its own prosperity.

Given this focus, creating and maintaining an effective fighting force becomes a secondary consideration, reflecting a relative disinterest -- remarkable to outsiders -- in the actual business of war, as opposed to the business of raking in dollars for the Pentagon and its industrial and political partners. A key element of the strategy involves seeding the military budget with “development” projects that require little initial outlay but which, down the line, grow irreversibly into massive, immensely profitable production contracts for our weapons-making cartels.

If this seems like a startling proposition, consider, for instance, the Air Force’s determined and unyielding efforts to jettison the A-10 Thunderbolt, widely viewed as the most effective means for supporting troops on the ground, while ardently championing the sluggish, vastly overpriced F-35Joint Strike Fighter that, among myriad other deficiencies, cannot fly within 25 miles of a thunderstorm. No less telling is the Navy’s ongoing affection for budget-busting programs such as aircraft carriers, while maintaining its traditional disdain for the unglamorous and money-poor mission of minesweeping, though the mere threat of enemy mines in the 1991 Gulf War(as in the Korean War decades earlier) stymied plans for major amphibious operations. Examples abound across all the services.

Meanwhile, ongoing and dramatic programs to invest vast sums in meaningless, useless, or superfluous weapons systems are the norm. There is no more striking example of this than current plans to rebuild the entire American arsenal of nuclear weapons in the coming decades, Obama's staggering bequest to the budgets of his successors.

Taking Nuclear Weapons to the Bank

These nuclear initiatives have received far less attention than they deserve, perhaps because observers are generally loath to acknowledge that the Cold War and its attendant nuclear terrors, supposedly consigned to the ashcan of history a quarter-century ago, are being revived on a significant scale. The U.S. is currently in the process of planning for the construction of a new fleet of nuclear submarines loaded with new intercontinental nuclear missiles, while simultaneously creating a new land-based intercontinental missile, a new strategic nuclear bomber, a new land-and-sea-based tactical nuclear fighter plane, a new long-range nuclear cruise missile (which, as recently as 2010, the Obama administration explicitly promised not to develop), at least three nuclear warheads that are essentially new designs, and new fuses for existing warheads. In addition, new nuclear command-and-control systems are under development for a fleet of satellites (costing up to $1 billion each) designed to make the business of fighting a nuclear war more practical and manageable.

This massive nuclear buildup, routinely promoted under the comforting rubric of “modernization,” stands in contrast to the president’s lofty public ruminations on the topic of nuclear weapons. The most recent of these was delivered during his visit -- the first by an American president -- to Hiroshima last month. There, he urged “nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles” to “have the courage to escape the logic of fear, and pursue a world without them.”

In reality, that “logic of fear” suggests that there is no way to “fight” a nuclear war, given the unforeseeable but horrific effects of these immensely destructive weapons. They serve no useful purpose beyond deterring putative opponents from using them, for which an extremely limited number would suffice. During the Berlin crisis of 1961, for example, when the Soviets possessed precisely four intercontinental nuclear missiles, White House planners seriously contemplated launching an overwhelming nuclear strike on the USSR. It was, they claimed, guaranteed to achieve “victory.” As Fred Kaplan recounts in his book Wizards of Armageddon, the plan’s advocates conceded that the Soviets might, in fact, be capable of managing a limited form of retaliation with their few missiles and bombers in which as many as three million Americans could be killed, whereupon the plan was summarily rejected.

In other words, in the Cold War as today, the idea of “nuclear war-fighting” could not survive scrutiny in a real-world context. Despite this self-evident truth, the U.S. military has long been the pioneer in devising rationales for fighting such a war via ever more “modernized” weapons systems. Thus, when first introduced in the early 1960s, the Navy’s invulnerable Polaris-submarine-launched intercontinental missiles -- entirely sufficient in themselves as a deterrent force against any potential nuclear enemy -- were seen within the military as an attack on Air Force operations and budgets. The Air Force responded by conceiving and successfully selling the need for a full-scale, land-based missile force as well, one that could more precisely target enemy missiles in what was termed a “counterforce” strategy.

The drive to develop and build such systems on the irrational pretense that nuclear war fighting is a practical proposition persists today. One component of the current “modernization” plan is the proposed development of a new “dial-a-yield” version of the venerable B-61 nuclear bomb. Supposedly capable of delivering explosions of varying strength according to demand, this device will, at least theoretically, be guidable to its target with high degrees of accuracy and will also be able to burrow deep into the earth to destroy buried bunkers. The estimated bill -- $11 billion -- is a welcome boost for the fortunes of the Sandia and Los Alamos weapons laboratories that are developing it.

The ultimate cost of this new nuclear arsenal in its entirety is essentially un-knowable. The only official estimate we have so far came from the Congressional Budget Office, which last year projected a total of $350 billion. That figure, however, takes the “modernization” program only to 2024 -- before, that is, most of the new systems move from development to actual production and the real bills for all of this start thudding onto taxpayers’ doormats. This year, for instance, the Navy is spending a billion and a half dollars in research and development funds on its new missile submarine, known only as the SSBN(X). Between 2025 and 2035, however, annual costs for that program are projected to run at $10 billion a year. Similar escalations are in store for the other items on the military’s impressive nuclear shopping list.

Assiduously tabulating these projections, experts at the Monterey Center for Nonproliferation Studies peg the price of the total program at a trillion dollars. In reality, though, the true bill that will come due over the next few decades will almost certainly be multiples of that. For example, the Air Force has claimed that its new B-21 strategic bombers will each cost more than $564 million (in 2010 dollars), yet resolutely refuses to release its secret internal estimates for the ultimate cost of the program.

To offer a point of comparison, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the tactical nuclear bomber previously mentioned, was originally touted as costing no more than $35 million per plane. In fact, it will actually enter service with a sticker price well in excess of $200 million.

Nor does that trillion-dollar figure take into account the inevitable growth of America’s nuclear “shield.” Nowadays, the excitement and debate once generated by President Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” scheme to build a defense system of anti-missile missiles and other devices against a nuclear attack is long gone. (The idea for such a defense, in fact, dates back to the 1950s, but Reagan boosted it to prominence.) Nevertheless, missile defense still routinely soaks up some $10 billion of our money annually, even though it is known to have no utility whatsoever.

“We have nothing to show for it,” Tom Christie, the former director of the Pentagon’s testing office, told me recently. “None of the interceptors we currently have in silos waiting to shoot down enemy missiles have ever worked in tests.” Even so, the U.S. is busy constructing more anti-missile bases across Eastern Europe. As our offensive nuclear programs are built up in the years to come, almost certainly eliciting a response from Russia and China, the pressure for a costly expansion of our nuclear “defenses” will surely follow.

The Bow-Wave Strategy

It’s easy enough to find hypocrisy in President Obama’s mellifluous orations on abolishing nuclear weapons given the trillion-dollar-plus nuclear legacy he will leave in his wake. The record suggests, however, that faced with the undeviating strategic thinking of the military establishment and its power to turn desires into policy, he has simply proven as incapable of altering the Washington system as his predecessors in the Oval Office were or as his successors are likely to be.

Inside the Pentagon, budget planners and weapons-buyers talk of the “bow wave,” referring to the process by which current research and development initiatives, initially relatively modest in cost, invariably lock in commitments to massive spending down the road. Traditionally, such waves start to form at times when the military is threatened with possible spending cutbacks due to the end of a war or some other budgetary crisis.

Former Pentagon analyst Franklin “Chuck” Spinney, who spent years observing and chronicling the phenomenon from the inside, recalls an early 1970s bow wave at a time when withdrawal from Vietnam appeared to promise a future of reduced defense spending. The military duly put in place an ambitious “modernization” program for new planes, ships, tanks, satellites, and missiles. Inevitably, when it came time to actually buy all those fancy new systems, there was insufficient money in the defense budget.

Accordingly, the high command cut back on spending for “readiness”; that is, for maintaining existing weapons in working order, training troops, and similar mundane activities. This had the desired effect -- at least from the point of view of Pentagon -- of generating a raft of media and congressional horror stories about the shocking lack of preparedness of our fighting forces and the urgent need to boost its budget. In this way, the hapless Jimmy Carter, elected to the presidency on a promise to rein in defense spending, found himself, in Spinney’s phrase, "mousetrapped," and eventually unable to resist calls for bigger military budgets.

This pattern would recur at the beginning of the 1990s when the Soviet Union imploded and the Cold War superpower military confrontation seemed at an end. The result was the germination of ultimately budget-busting weapons systems like the Air Force’s F-35 and F-22 fighters. It happened again when pullbacks from Iraq and Afghanistan in Obama’s first term led to mild military spending cuts. As Spinney points out, each successive bow wave crests at a higher level, while military budget cuts due to wars ending and the like become progressively more modest.

The latest nuclear buildup is only the most glaring and egregious example of the present bow wave that is guaranteed to grow to monumental proportions long after Obama has retired to full-time speechmaking. The cost of the first of the Navy’s new Ford Class aircraft carriers, for example, has already grown by 20% to $13 billion with more undoubtedly to come. The “Third Offset Strategy,” a fantasy-laden shopping list of robot drones and “centaur” (half-man, half-machine) weapons systems, assiduously touted by Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work, is similarly guaranteed to expand stunningly beyond the $3.6 billion allotted to its development next year.

Faced with such boundlessly ambitious raids on the public purse, no one should claim a “lack of strategy” as a failing among our real policymakers, even if all that planning has little or nothing to do with distant war zones where Washington’s conflicts smolder relentlessly on.




Andrew Cockburn is the Washington editor of Harper’s Magazine. An Irishman, he has covered national security topics in this country for many years. In addition to numerous books, he co-produced the 1997 feature film The Peacemaker and the 2009 documentary on the financial crisis, American Casino. His latest book is Kill Chain: The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins (just out in paperback). Reprinted with permission from TomDispatch.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2016/06/485_207291.html

Posted : 2016-06-17 18:27
Updated : 2016-06-17 22:11

NK may have 50 nuclear weapons by 2020

By Rachel Lee

North Korea's nuclear stockpile could grow to 50 weapons by 2020, according to a U.S. analyst.

David Albright, president of the nonprofit Institute for Science and International Security, claimed that Pyongyang could amass a nuclear arsenal of around 50 weapons in four years time based on recent research, the Voice of America reported, Friday.

Last year, the American expert warned that North Korea could have around 100 nuclear weapons, following a one-year joint project with the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and the National Defense University to predict possibilities of Pyongyang's nuclear programs for the next five years.

Albright also said the Institute for Science and International Security has been making efforts to locate nuclear weapons facilities in the North.

Leakage of information from North Korea and the growing ability of satellites to identify ever-smaller objects, have made it easier to find the locations, he said, adding that there are already a few spots assumed to have centrifuge plants.

There could be more nuclear installations that have yet to be discovered, but the stockpile of available nuclear weapons would not increase significantly, the American expert said, adding that the number of weapons may increase by 2 to 5, or even go down, considering other possible factors.

On Tuesday, the institute estimated Pyongyang's current nuclear stockpile to be between 13 to 21, including approximately four or more weapons made over the last 18 months.

rachel@ktimes.com

 

[mzkitty]

2m
Russian President Putin: Russia will improve its missile strike capability in response to US missile shield in Europe - Reuters
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