Chinese Communist Party Funds Washington Think Tanks

China’s President Xi Jinping / Getty Images

 

United Front Work Department conducts aggressive influence operations in U.S.

China’s Communist Party is intensifying covert influence operations in the United States that include funding Washington think tanks and coercing Chinese Americans, according to a congressional commission report.

The influence operations are conducted by the United Front Work Department, a Central Committee organ that employs tens of thousands of operatives who seek to use both overt and covert operations to promote Communist Party policies.

Experts Say Medical Care Next Big Cyber Threat

 

Panelists discuss risks posed by new ‘Internet of Bodies’

“Medical care is the next cyber warfare,” technologist Janine Medina explained Thursday at a panel on the cybersecurity problems posed by the emerging prevalence of internet-connected medical and body-embedded devices.

Pentagon Furious After Turkey Leaks U.S. Base Locations In Syria: “Hard Not To See This As A F-You”

#AA'nın 'PKK/PYD'ye ABD desteği' haberi uluslararası basında yankı uyandırdı https://t.co/8IJbm9w16D pic.twitter.com/svt4u9v5CD

— Anadolu Ajansı (@anadoluajansi) July 19, 2017

 

So much for NATO-alliance members working for the common good.

In a move that has angered the U.S. for obvious reason, Turkey’s state-run news agency Anadolu Agency has leaked the precise locations of U.S. bases in northern Syria. The move – which exposes the exact locations of American soldiers on the front lines in the war-torn nation – has sent the ongoing feud between the two NATO allies to new lows. As Bloomberg details, in reports published in both Turkish and English on Tuesday, Anadolu provided detailed information about 10 U.S. bases in northern Syria, including troop counts and a map of the U.S. force presence in the Turkish version.

Russia Keeps Provoking NATO Planes: SecAF

A Russian Su-27 fighter flies over the Kamchatka Peninsula. In April, a Su-27 intercepted an American reconnaissance aircraft over the Baltic Sea in a series of hostile fly-bys in 2016 alone, the Air Force’s top civilian said.

 

The Russian air force has not shown any good faith toward NATO aircraft policing Baltic airspace in recent months by conducting a flurry of unsafe maneuvers and flybys, the top civilian leader of the Air Force said Monday.

Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said the German air force, which oversees the mission, reported “more than 30 scrambles between the end of August and the start of November this year, intercepting Russian aircraft flying near civilian air routes with their transponders turned off.”

World War 3 Imminent: Russia Could Declare War ‘Overnight’ With ‘No Warning Time’ For NATO

If you’ve been reading Global Geopolitics for a while, you’d know how far the ‘mainstream media’ is behind on catching red flags, so you will have already heard the warning from one of Putin’s henchmen describing how they will carpet bomb everything until they reach Poland:

“We have to strike Poland and the Baltic States, where there are NATO rockets and aircraft. Since we cannot allow one plane to take off and strike Russia – we will have to strike first – half an hour before takeoff. And to be sure, we will be carpet bombing.  America is not a threat, but the small midget states of Europe will cease to exist. They will be wiped out. Then NATO will have to beg us for negotiations. Otherwise we will give them again a May ’45.”

– Vladimir Zhirinovsky, August 2014 (Television interview, 8.08.2014.)

 

World War 3 mobilization Russian tanks

 

World War 3 is the hobgoblin of the modern military world, what with wars and civil wars and proxy wars springing up all over the globe. But a think tank is now warning the West to be wary of Russia and its military build-up and increased maneuverings and war exercises, for, according to them, they could actually disguise troop and materiel movement that would be the vanguard of a sweeping invasion that NATO and the Western powers might not be able to stop or contain.

The Daily Star reported July 24 that the Atlantic Council, an international affairs think tank headquartered in Washington, DC, issued its latest dispatch on the state of potential military weaknesses with regard to Russia, finding that the world’s largest nation (land-wise) could easily mount a quick and efficient attack in eastern Europe and, in effect, declare war “overnight” and take over the Baltic states before the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) could mount anything close to an effective defense. It would be a military action that could very well lead to World War 3.

Russia could invade Poland ‘overnight’, report claims

Soldier of the Polish Army sits in a tank as a NATO flag flies behind during the NATO Noble Jump military exercises of the VJTF forces on 18 June, 2015 in Zagan, Poland Sean Gallup/Getty Images

 

Russia could invade Poland “overnight” and easily overwhelm its Nato allies, a study has predicted.

“Even if Moscow currently has no immediate intent to challenge Nato directly, this may unexpectedly change overnight and can be implemented with great speed, following already prepared plans,” the Atlantic Council report warns.

“The capability to do so is, to a large extent, in place.”

Russia Bolsters Its Submarine Fleet, and Tensions With U.S. Rise

 

NAPLES, Italy — Russian attack submarines, the most in two decades, are prowling the coastlines of Scandinavia and Scotland, the Mediterranean Sea and the North Atlantic in what Western military officials say is a significantly increased presence aimed at contesting American and NATO undersea dominance.

Adm. Mark Ferguson, the United States Navy’s top commander in Europe, said last fall that the intensity of Russian submarine patrols had risen by almost 50 percent over the past year, citing public remarks by the Russian Navy chief, Adm. Viktor Chirkov. Analysts say that tempo has not changed since then.

Iran Holds Nothing Back: “It’s A Weird Suicide Mission That Will Have A Very Dark End”

Earlier today we reported that Saudi Arabia has made a “final” decision to invade Syria.

…

The timing of the announcement quite clearly suggests that the Saudis are going to try and shore up the rebels who are facing imminent defeat at Aleppo where Hezbollah, backed by Russian airstrikes, is about to overrun the opposition.

New details of Chinese space weapons revealed

A forthcoming report by the congressional U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission provides new details of China’s space-weapons programs, dubbed counterspace arms, that are aimed at destroying or jamming U.S. satellites and limiting American combat operations around the world.

“China is pursuing a broad and robust array of counterspace capabilities, which includes direct-ascent anti-satellite missiles, co-orbital anti-satellite systems, computer network operations, ground-based satellite jammers and directed energy weapons,” a late draft of the commission’s annual report states. “China’s nuclear arsenal also provides an inherent anti-satellite capability.”

China military planners expect to use a combination of kinetic, electronic and cyber attacks against satellites or ground support structures in a conflict.

Admiral: North Korea Can Hit U.S. With Long-Range Nuclear Missile

Pyongyang shows off new variant of mobile ICBM

North Korea is capable of hitting the United States with a long-range nuclear missile, the commander of the U.S. Northern Command said last week.

“I agree with the intel community that we assess that they have the ability, they have the weapons, and they have the ability to miniaturize those weapons, and they have the ability to put them on a rocket that can range the homelands,” said Adm. William Gortney, the Northcom commander who is also in charge of defending the United States from long-range missile attack.

“And as the defender of North America, the United States officially, in the ballistic missile defense, I think the American people expect me to take the threat seriously,” he said Wednesday at the Atlantic Council.

Russian Long-Range Cruise Missiles ‘Particular Challenge’ for US Defense

And thanks to the chaos in Syria, Russia and a host of other nations such as China and Iran are able to test out their new toys. This is why Chechnya has never seen a full-scale Russian invasion although most of their Chechen rebel and islamic terror problems in the past have come from it. Although it’s been quiet lately, it serves as a playground for continuous testing.

 

Russian long-range aviation and highly accurate long-range cruise missiles present a new challenge for US strategic homeland defense, US Commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) Adm. William Gortney said.

“The challenge that is confronting us…is the Russian long-range aviation and the Russian cruise missile threat from submarine, subsurface platforms and surface platforms,” Gortney said in a Wednesday speech at the Atlantic Council.

US: Russia Building ‘Arc Of Steel’ From Arctic To Med

WASHINGTON — A resurgent Russia is creating an “arc of steel” meant to challenge and confront NATO, a top US naval officer warned Tuesday.

“We are observing the manifestation of a more aggressive, more capable Russian Navy,” Adm. Mark Ferguson, commander of US Naval Forces Europe and commander of the Allied Joint Force Command in Naples, said in Washington. “It is naval capability focused directly on addressing the perceived advantages of NATO navies. And they are signaling us and warning us that the maritime domain is contested.”

Russia’s growing presence in Latin America is cause of worry for U.S. and its allies

The U.S. and its allies seem to be waking up a little too late.

Before Obama became President in 2008 the Soviets wanted to renovate their old Punte Hinte strategic airport in Nicaragua, the largest within the country, that can accommodate Russia’s Tu-160 strategic bomber (or other future bombers) in an ideal spot from which to launch attacks on the American homeland.

Most of the danger lies not in the fact that the Russians are meddling in America’s “backyard”, but in the fact of how slow America is to realize what’s taking place and how it reacts, which is complacent.

 

Punta Heute Airfield, Nicaragua

 

Frequent visits to the region by high-ranking Russian officials – culminating this week with a four-nation trip by Foreign Minister Serguei Lavrov – and rumors of the sale of military aircraft to countries like Argentina and Nicaragua have led to widespread speculation about Moscow’s increasing role in Latin America and what this means for relations between the United States and its neighbors in the Western Hemisphere.

US Concerned About Russia’s Emerging Strategic Military Capabilities

The United States is concerned about Russia’s emerging strategic capabilities in nuclear, space, cyber security spheres, Commander of US Strategic Command Adm. Cecil Haney said on Thursday.

“Russia has had more than a decade of investments in modernization across their strategic nuclear forces. This is not about the continuation of the cold war <…>This is about emerging capability at a time of significant concerns in Russians execution of their near abroad strategy,” Adm. Haney said at the event devoted to strategic deterrence in Atlantic Council, Washington, DC.

Out of Control

KIEV/BERLIN (Own report) – Accompanied by protest demonstrations, Kiev’s Prime Minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, will have talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel today, Thursday, on expanding German support to Ukraine. Yatsenyuk is pursuing an arms buildup by all possible means. Observers assume that Kiev is preparing a new offensive in Ukraine’s civil war. It was reported that several NATO countries are involved in arming the country’s military. The German government confirmed back in September that it had satisfactorily complied with Ukraine’s requests including “defensive equipment”. Even trans-Atlantic supporters of Kiev’s February 2014 putsch, are now warning that a considerable rise in the influence of fascist militias and certain oligarchs is threatening to establish an uncontrollable warlord system. Prime Minister Yatsenyuk’s party has particularly taken the lead in supporting right-wing extremist battalions. Yesterday, Yatsenyuk was ceremoniously received by German President Joachim Gauck.