U.S. Expected to Strike Back for Iran’s Downing of Drone

President Donald Trump / Getty Images

 

Trump: ‘Iran made a big mistake’

The United States is likely to take military action against Iran in the coming days for Tehran’s downing a U.S. drone in international airspace on Wednesday near the Strait of Hormuz.

The Central Command said an RQ-4 Global Hawk drone aircraft was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile system while operating in international airspace around 7:35 p.m. on Wednesday.

US Marines are practicing seizing small islands as a possible China fight looms in the Pacific

Lance Cpl. Chris Pedroza, a rifleman with Alpha Company, Battalion Landing Team, 1st Battalion, 4th Marines, the “China Marines,” firing an M240G medium machine gun during low-light live-fire machine-gun training at Anderson Air Force Base in Guam on March 11. (Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Harrison C. Rakhshani)

 

• US Marines recently led a simulated assault on a small island in the Pacific, honing skills thought to be essential in a fight with China.
• The exercise, which also involved the Army and the Air Force, was part of the Corps’ efforts to refine the Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations concept.
• “This entire mission profile simulated the process of securing advanced footholds for follow-on forces to conduct further military operations, with rapid redeployment,” the service said.
• Last week, Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress that the ability to seize advanced bases would be critical in a war with China.

Everything that is old may indeed be new again.

India v Pakistan & the 2019/2020 Turning Point

 

The last time that Indian and Pakistan were at war was back in 1971. Our War Model turned up in 1964 and indeed it marked the beginning of the US Vietnam War. In reality, the separation or the partition of India took place in 1947 based upon religion. The British created two independent dominions, India and Pakistan. India became the Republic of India in 1950, and in 1957 the Dominion of Pakistan became the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. In 1971, the People’s Republic of Bangladesh came into being. On March 25, 1971, there was also the Bangladesh War of Independence against Pakistan. Bangladesh was a Sunni Muslim state as was the case with Pakistan.  The partition involved the division of three provinces — Assam, Bengal, and Punjab — based on separating Hindus from Muslim majorities.

Russia Cyberattacks Norway

Exterior of the satellite antenna in Longyearbyen, Norway (iStock.com/Dmitry_Chulov)

 

Increasing provocations from Moscow will have a worrying effect on the nations of Europe.

Russia has carried out repeated acts of “extensive electronic jamming” of satellite signals in Norway, the head of Norway’s foreign intelligence unit said during a national risk assessment report on February 11.

“This is not only a new challenge for Norwegian and Allied training operations,” Morten Haga Lunde said in the report. “Jamming is also a threat to, among others, civilian air traffic and police and health operations in peacetime.”

After Putin’s warning, Russian TV lists nuclear targets in U.S.

FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with FIFA President Gianni Infantino at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia February 20, 2019. (Yuri Kadobnov/Pool via REUTERS)

 

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian state television has listed U.S. military facilities that Moscow would target in the event of a nuclear strike, and said that a hypersonic missile Russia is developing would be able to hit them in less than five minutes.

The targets included the Pentagon and the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland.

EXCLUSIVE: Special ops to turn focus from war on terror to China, Russia

Army Green Berets are trained for lethal close-quarter combat operations and small-team interoperability, but they will need digital skills for the future of warfare. (U.S. Army) (Photo by: Sgt. Ian Ives)

 

Will be taking a larger role in cyberwarfare, information and ‘influence’ operations, sources say

America’s elite special operations forces are getting new marching orders as the Pentagon moves away from its post-9/11 focus on radical terrorist groups and trains its eye on big-power rivals such as China and Russia.

In a major shift of mission, officials at U.S. Special Operations Command are drafting new guidance to reorient its cadre of top-tier military units to fight the expanding armies and navies of what U.S. strategists call “near-peer” powers.

Turkey: Uniting an “Army of Islam” to Defeat Just One Country

In 2016, Necati Yılmaz, an MP from the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), submitted a written parliamentary motion to then-Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım, questioning the activities and international connections of “SADAT International Defense Consultancy,” which is headed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s chief military advisor, Adnan Tanriverdi. Pictured: Necati Yılmaz. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

 

• At the conference, Adnan Tanriverdi, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s top military advisor, delivered a speech detailing the inner workings of the “Islamic Confederal State” that Tanriverdi’s Strategic Research Center for Defenders of Justice (ASSAM) aims to establish with 61 Muslim countries.
• Judging by an article Tanriverdi penned in 2009, the purpose of this joint Islamic force is to defeat Israel, which “should be made to get engaged [in war] and the length of the war should be extended.”
• Erdogan and his chief military advisor are obviously engaging in projection. It is Turkey that has ethnically cleansed itself of Greeks, Assyrians and Armenians, and that is now targeting Syrian Kurds. It is the Turkish government’s continued aggression against various peoples in Israel, Syria, Iraq, Cyprus and other countries that is a threat to world peace; not Israel. It is Turkey, not Israel, whose destabilizing foreign policy needs to change.

Istanbul recently hosted the second “International Islamic Union Congress,” sponsored mainly by the Strategic Research Center for Defenders of Justice (ASSAM), which is headed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s chief military advisor, Adnan Tanriverdi, a retired lieutenant general and an Islamist .

The Geopolitics Of South-East Europe And Importance Of The Regional Geostrategic Position (I)

South-East Europe

 

The geopolitical issue of South-East Europe became of very importance for the scholars, policymakers, and researchers with the question of the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire as one of the most crucial features of the beginning of the 20^th century in European history. A graduate collapsing of the one-time great empire was accelerated and followed by competition and struggling by both, the European Great Powers and the Balkan national states, upon the territorial inheritance of it. While the European Great Powers have the aim to obtain the new spheres of political-economic influence in South-East Europe, followed by the task to establish a new balance of power in the continent, a total collapse of the Ottoman state was seen by small Balkan nations as the unique historical opportunity to enlarge the territories of their national-states by unification of all ethnolinguistic compatriots from the Ottoman Empire with the motherland. A creation of a single national state, composed by all ethnographic and historic “national” lands, was in the eyes of the leading Balkan politicians as a final stage of national awakening, revival and liberation of their nations which started at the turn of the 19^th century on the ideological basis of the German romanticist nationalism expressed in a formula: “One Language-One Nation-One State”.[i]

New Spy Headquarters Highlights Germany’s Changing Role

German police stand guard in front of the Federal Intelligence Service headquarters in Berlin on February 8. (JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP/Getty Images)

 

The newfound importance of Germany’s national spy agency is deeply symbolic of its changing foreign policy.

Germany opened a new headquarters for its national spy agency, the bnd, on February 8. The opening of this new facility in the very heart of Berlin is symbolic of an ongoing transformation in Germany’s foreign policy.

Deutsche Welle noted that “the move signals a major symbolic change for Germany, no longer shying away from taking a prominent role on the global stage.” The opening is not only a step forward for the bnd, but also for Germany’s international role.

The bnd headquarters was previously located in the countryside near Munich. Now that it has moved to the center of Berlin, it is close to other government offices and the former site of the Berlin Wall. Moving the headquarters to this area where Germany was once divided but is now united and resurgent is a symbolic victory.

The World’s Most Dangerous Nuclear Weapon Just Rolled Off the Assembly Line

 

With the creation of a new “mini-nuke” warhead, the US is making nuclear war all the more probable…

Last month, the National Nuclear Security Administration (formerly the Atomic Energy Commission) announced that the first of a new generation of strategic nuclear weapons had rolled off the assembly line at its Pantex nuclear weapons plant in the panhandle of Texas. That warhead, the W76-2, is designed to be fitted to a submarine-launched Trident missile, a weapon with a range of more than 7,500 miles. By September, an undisclosed number of warheads will be delivered to the Navy for deployment.

The Kremlin’s Strategy for World Domination

AleXei Nikolsky/TASS/Getty Images

 

Vladimir Putin and his generals are following a blueprint laid out by a neo-fascist political scientist to replace the United States as the world superpower.

The Kremlin is following a detailed plan to replace the United States as the world superpower. Astonishingly most American leaders do not understand this reality. Like former United States President Barack Obama, they dismiss Russia as a “regional power” attacking nations like Ukraine from a position of weakness, instead of strength. Their assessment could not be more wrong. The 2014 conquest of Crimea was actually a calculated step in Russia’s strategy for world domination.

And this strategy was drawn up years in advance.

Pentagon: ‘Rising Chinese Military Has Taiwan in Its Crosshairs’

Always remember a Chinese war with Taiwan goes beyond the scope of simple reunification via force. As per the quotes page:

“The central committee believes, as long as we resolve the United States problem at one blow, our domestic problems will all be readily solved. Therefore, our military battle preparation appears to aim at Taiwan, but in fact is aimed at the United States, and the preparation is far beyond the scope of attacking aircraft carriers or satellites.”

– Chi Haotian, Minster of Defense and vice-chairman of China’s Central Military Commission

 

Soldiers attend the state memorial ceremony for China’s National Memorial Day for Nanjing Massacre Victims at the Nanjing massacre memorial hall on December 13, 2018 in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province of China. (Getty Images)

 

China is ‘on the verge of fielding some of the most modern weapon systems in the world. In some areas, it already leads the world.’

China has made major military advancements and developed new weapons technologies as it works to boost its ability to wage war over places such as Taiwan, according to a January 15 report from the United States Defense Intelligence Agency.

“Beijing’s long-standing interest to eventually compel Taiwan’s reunification with the mainland and deter any attempt by Taiwan to declare independence has served as the primary driver for China’s military modernization,” the report said.

Russian Official Cancels U.S. Visit, Saying ‘Second American Civil War’ Is Underway

Activists and protesters gesture at a man wearing a confederate flag before a Ku Klux Klan rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, July 8, 2017. Such clashes in the same city would turn deadly one month later when a white supremacist killed a protester with his vehicles, sparking nationwide tensions only further stoked by President Donald Trump’s polarizing response. (ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images )

 

Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia’s Roscosmos State Space Corporation, who served as deputy prime minister until May 2017, said Thursday that rising tensions between Republicans and Democrats were leading to a breakdown of U.S. society. This included the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), one of many federal agencies affected by a government shutdown due to an inability for the rival U.S. parties to agree on funding for a border wall proposed by President Donald Trump.

“I think that America is actually engulfed by its second civil war now,” Rogozin told the Rossiya-24 TV channel, as translated by the state-run Tass Russian News Agency.

Invading Israel

An IDF entry point to a Hezbollah tunnel from Lebanon (Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images)

 

Iran’s war against Israel is heating up rapidly: Iran is moving beyond threats and mobilizing for hostilities.

Jerusalem—On Nov. 13, 2018, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government was on the edge of collapse. In one 25-hour period, the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hamas launched over 400 rockets, missiles and mortars into Israel from the Gaza Strip. It was the largest single-day barrage ever. For those Israelis within range of the missiles, it was the last straw. I spoke to Israelis who experienced the attacks, and most of them emphasized the need to push back against Hamas to stop the incessant fire. Living under the constant threat of war and the stress of having less than 10 seconds to get to a bomb shelter is clearly taking a toll.

Netanyahu: US will run economic war against Iran, leaving military drive to Israel

 

That the US retains the economic side of the war on Iran leaving the military campaign for Israel to manage – in the words of Prime Minister/Defense Minister Binyamin Netanyahu – defines the new reality set out by the Trump administration.