Whale with harness could be Russian weapon, say Norwegian experts

Whale in mystery harness harasses Norwegian boats – video (at source)

 

Fisherman raised alarm after white whale sporting unusual strapping began harassing their boats

Marine experts in Norway believe they have stumbled upon a white whale that was trained by the Russian navy as part of a programme to use underwater mammals as a special ops force.

Fishermen in waters near the small Norwegian fishing village of Inga reported last week that a white beluga whale wearing a strange harness had begun to harass their fishing boats.

China’s Acoustic Cannon

FILE – In this Oct. 26, 2009 file photo, security workers guard at construction site of the U.S. Consulate compound in Guangzhou in southern China’s Guangdong province. The State Department said an email notice Wednesday, May 23, 2018, that a U.S. government employee in southern China reported abnormal sensations of sound and pressure, recalling similar experiences among American diplomats in Cuba who later fell ill. (Chinatopix via AP, File)

 

U.S. intelligence and security agencies investigating the mysterious sonic attacks against American diplomatic personnel in China need to look no further than China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The ministry stated in a Nov. 15 report on the use of military technology for civilian projects that one program involves an “acoustic wave cannon.”

The weapon appears to be a variant of the sonic cannon produced by China’s Dongguan 3G Acoustic Technology Co. Ltd.

The U.S. Will Develop Newly Unbanned Weapons as a Key Missile Treaty Ends

A JASSM missile undergoing launch tests from a F-16 fighter over the Gulf of Mexico, 2018. Image: SMgst Michael Jackson (Air Force)

 

The United States is planning to quickly develop two new missiles previously banned by a 30-year-old arms control treaty. America’s withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, sparked by allegations of Russian cheating, is paving the way for Washington to match Russian weapons with new missiles of its own. The U.S. will test the missiles as soon as this August, within days of the end of the treaty.

The two missile types, a ground-launched cruise missile and an intermediate-range ballistic missile, were previously banned by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The INF Treaty, signed in 1987, banned land-based missiles with ranges from 310 to 3,420 miles.

Although the treaty itself didn’t ban actual nuclear weapons, it removed key nuclear delivery systems from the inventories of both the U.S. and U.S.S.R., dramatically lowering the number of nuclear weapons deployed in Europe.

China Is Spending Billions To Dethrone The U.S. In Race For The World’s Fastest Supercomputer

 

China is currently in the midst of a multi-billion dollar investment cycle to upgrade its supercomputer infrastructure in a bid to pass the United States for fastest supercomputer in the world after the United States regained the title for fastest supercomputer in 2018, ending a five-year reign of Chinese dominance.

As SCMP notes, China had been first on the global Top 500 list of supercomputers since the launch of Tianhe-2 in 2013. In June 2018, the U.S. Summit supercomputer bumped China from the number one spot.

Turkey: Putin’s Ally in NATO?

Turkey has NATO’s second biggest army, and its military love affair with Russia may be in its infancy now, but it undermines NATO’s military deterrence against Russia. Pictured: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, on March 10, 2017. (Image source: kremlin.ru)

 

• On March 7, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Turkey would never turn back from the S-400 missile deal with Russia. He even added that Ankara may subsequently look into buying the more advanced S-500 systems now under construction in Russia.
• With the S-400 deal, Turkey is simply telling its theoretical Western allies that it views “them,” and “not Russia,” as a security threat. Given that Russia is widely considered a security threat to NATO, Turkey’s odd-one-out position inevitably calls for questioning its official NATO identity.
• Turkey has NATO’s second biggest army, and its military love affair with Russia may be in its infancy now, but it undermines NATO’s military deterrence against Russia.

On September 17, 1950, more than 68 years ago, the first Turkish brigade left the port of Mersin on the Mediterranean coast, arriving, 26 days later, at Busan in Korea. Turkey was the first country, after the United States, to answer the United Nations’ call for military aid to South Korea after the North attacked that year. Turkey sent four brigades (a total of 21,212 soldiers) to a country that is 7,785 km away. By the end of the Korean War, Turkey had lost 741 soldiers killed in action. The U.N. Memorial Cemetery in Busan embraces 462 Turkish soldiers.

Iran Building Two New Nuclear Plants

The reactor building at the Bushehr nuclear power plant in southern Iran / Getty Images

 

Files complaint against U.S. for ‘crimes against humanity’

Iranian leaders announced on Monday the construction of two new nuclear plants, and it remains unclear if the Trump administration views this as crossing a red line since its abandonment of the landmark nuclear deal, which included provisions permitting Iran to work on heavy water nuclear reactors that could provide a plutonium-based pathway to a bomb.

50 Iranian drones conduct massive ‘way to Jerusalem’ exercise – report

A military vehicle carrying Iranian Zoobin smart bomb (L) and Sagheb missile under pictures of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (R) and Late Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini during a parade to commemorate the anniversary of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), in Tehran September 22, 2011.. (photo credit: REUTERS/STRINGER)

 

The point of the drill is to showcase Iran’s military prowess. It comes in the wake of a large naval drill in February and frequent new tests of ballistic missiles.

Iran’s Defense Ministry announced on Thursday that it had launched a massive exercise involving 50 drones that are based on a US Sentinel drone the Iranians captured in 2011. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it was the strongest exercise of its kind to date.

Joint Chiefs Chairman: Google ‘Is Indirectly Benefiting The Chinese Military’

WASHINGTON (CBS SF / CNN) — America’s top general said Thursday that Mountain View-based Google’s work in China “is indirectly benefiting the Chinese military.”

“The work that Google is doing in China is indirectly benefiting the Chinese military and I’ve been very public on this issue as well,” Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said while testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Germany proposes European aircraft carrier

(Photo: UK Defense Journal)

 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has endorsed the idea of a joint European aircraft carrier.

…

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the politician that succeeded Merkel last year as leader of the governing Christian Democratic Union in Germany, made the proposal in a weekend response to the French President’s proposals for European reform.

North Korea’s Satellites Could Unleash Electromagnetic Pulse Attack

 

North Korea reportedly is rebuilding its Sohae satellite launch facility, widely interpreted as threatening to resume intercontinental missile development — ignoring the greater immediate threat from North Korea’s satellites and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack.

Dr. William Graham, EMP Commission Chairman, in “North Korea Nuclear EMP Attack: An Existential Threat,” on Oct. 12, 2017, warned Congress:

“While most analysts are fixated on when in the future North Korea will develop highly reliable intercontinental missiles, guidance systems, and reentry vehicles capable of striking a U.S. city, the threat here and now from EMP is largely ignored. EMP attack does not require an accurate guidance system because the area of effect, having a radius of hundreds or thousands of kilometers, is so large.

U.S. “Gets Its Ass Handed To It” In World War III Simulation: RAND

 

In simulated World War III scenarios, the U.S. continues to lose against Russia and China, two top war planners warned last week. “In our games, when we fight Russia and China, blue gets its ass handed to it” RAND analyst David Ochmanek said Thursday.

RAND’s wargames show how US Armed Forces – colored blue on wargame maps – experience the most substantial losses in one scenario after another and still can’t thwart Russia or China – which predictably is red – from accomplishing their objectives: annihilating Western forces.

“We lose a lot of people. We lose a lot of equipment. We usually fail to achieve our objective of preventing aggression by the adversary,” he warned.

“We Aren’t Slaves”: Erdogan Says Russian S-400s A “Done Deal”, Hints At Future S-500 Upgrade

S-500 Air Defense System, which Erdogan said Turkey could upgrade to in the future, in defiance on Washington. Image via Military and Commercial Technology blog

 

“This is over” — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said this week as US Congress continues discussion and debate on holding up delivery of Lockheed-produced F-35 stealth jets purchased previously by Turkey due to Ankara’s intent to receive Russian S-400 anti-air defense systems from Russia.

U.S. hits back against Chinese cyberattacks

The Chinese military hacker unit has conducted operations since at least 2013 in support of China’s naval modernization effort. (U.S. Navy) (Photo by: Samuel Shavers)

 

American intelligence and military cyberwarriors have begun conducting counter-cyberattacks against Chinese intelligence and military targets, according to a U.S. official.

The counterattacks are part of a new Trump administration policy designed to retaliate for rampant cybertheft of American technology by the Chinese that has caused estimated losses ranging from $200 billion to $600 billion a year. Details of the U.S. cyberoperations were not disclosed, and the activities remain classified.

The hacking is likely to include theft of Chinese advanced military know-how, such as hypersonic missile technology — an area of military research where China is believed to be ahead of the United States. Another possible target would be technology related to China’s anti-ship ballistic missile technology like that deployed in the DF-21D ship-killing missile. Such technology requires maneuvering warheads and special guidance.

New Russian missile threat to homeland

Air Force Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy, who is also commander of the U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Command (NORAD), said Russia “only recently developed and deployed capabilities to threaten us below the nuclear threshold.” (Associated Press/File)

 

The commander of the military’s Northern Command warned this week that Moscow is deploying conventionally armed missiles that for the first time are capable of striking targets deep inside the United States.

Air Force Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy, who is also commander of the U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Command (NORAD), stated in prepared congressional testimony that while Russian nuclear missiles have threatened the country for more than 50 years, Moscow “only recently developed and deployed capabilities to threaten us below the nuclear threshold.”

Intel: How Turkey is turning to Russia amid row with US over Syria

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (R) and Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu give a joint press conference after their meeting in Moscow, Aug. 24, 2018. (KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP/Getty Images)

 

The timing of the Turkish foreign minister’s unexpected phone call today with his Russian counterpart in the middle of US-Turkey talks on Syria is the latest sign that Washington and Ankara remain hopelessly at odds over how to move forward in the region.

Why it matters: Mevlut Cavusoglu’s call to Sergey Lavrov was made “upon the initiative of the Turkish side,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The Syria dossier topped the agenda.