Royal Navy to Lose Amphibious Capabilities

HMS Ocean sails into the sunset

 

Possible cuts will leave Britain incapable of the offensive.

Under the cover of darkness on May 21, 1982, British forces landed on the beaches of San Carlos in the Falklands. The 2 Para, 40 Commandos, and the 3 Para and the 41 Commandos conducted an unopposed amphibious assault, assisted by special forces, in a campaign to retake the capital city of Stanley. By the time the sun rose, the rest of the 3rd Commando Brigade was onshore to repulse the Argentinian counterattack.

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The British could not have won the Falklands War without using their amphibious capabilities. The Thatcher government received a great deal of praise for the war, and it was a moment that made Britain believe in itself again as a major power. Ironically, all of that would have been impossible if the Conservative government’s plan of cutting the aircraft carriers and amphibious fleet had come about earlier. The Falklands War saved the Royal Navy.

Remarkably, the current Conservative government is planning similar cuts, by retiring the Royal Navy’s last aircraft carrier, the hms Ocean.

NATO to put 16,000 troops on borders of Poland, Baltic states with Russia

US Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work said Friday that NATO will place four battalions, each with 4,000 troops, on the borders of Poland and the Baltic states with Russia. The placement of forces is a response to Russia’s constant maneuvers and other military operations on its borders with Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, Work added. Two battalions will be sent by the US while Britain and Germany will each send one.

Navy ready to launch first strike on Syria

As has been stated here many times: Expect war, not a peaceful resolution. The Assad regime realizes what happened to the leaders in Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Lebanon and Iraq, to name a few. They all wound up dead or imprisoned. When their last military stronghold gives way, which seems to be the Syrian air force in this case, expect the Assad regime to go “all-out” and for the conflict to likely ignite a powder keg engulfing the entire Middle East.

Furthermore, don’t expect the retaliation to just be “over there” in some far off region called the middle east. Both Syria and Iran have thousands of sleeper cells planted within the United States — and have been for well over a decade.

Lastly, events leading to an all-out regional war in the middle east could mean that Isaiah 17:1 will indeed be fulfilled during this generation.

Britain is planning to join forces with America and launch military action against Syria within days in response to the gas attack believed to have been carried out by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces against his own people.

Royal Navy vessels are being readied to take part in a possible series of cruise missile strikes, alongside the United States, as military commanders finalise a list of potential targets.

Government sources said talks between the Prime Minister and international leaders, including Barack Obama, would continue, but that any military action that was agreed could begin within the next week.

Britain and US plan a Syrian revolution from an innocuous office block in Istanbul

What has been kept in the dark is the exact same plan was used on Lybia, Egypt and a few other countries. They were portrayed as random events with innocents looking for freedom, when in fact undermining forces were planned and created for some while — roughly three years in the making since Obama took office. Respective governments were caught in a catch-22. They either have to quell the uprisings that continue in escalation and won’t cease by killing their own, or cave in and give way to the new ruling class.

The current US administration is overturning the entire Middle East, and as you see now, consequently has traded  in regional stability for chaos with more extreme terrorist organizations taking over, all in order to whittle away at Iran’s growing hegemony. In the larger scheme of things, these countries are all pawns of Russia and China as a proxy/economic weapon against the West. Therefore, it’s also an attempt on their influence.

“We are not ‘king-making’ in Syria. The UK and the US are moving cautiously to help what has been developing within Syria to improve the capabilities of the opposition,” said a British consultant overseeing the programme. “What’s going to come next? Who is going to control territory across Syria. We want to give civilians the skills to assert leadership.”

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Foreign intervention in civil wars has proven to be a perilous undertaking since the end of the Cold War but in Syria where an invasion has proven unfeasible, diplomats have had to resort to creative thinking.

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“This has been a generational coming of age,” said the consultant, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “The Foreign Secretary started this as a way to make sure that people who committed crimes in Syria would be held to account. Those of us with experience of the Balkans have taken the lessons of that conflict very much as a formative experience.”

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“There are groups inside and outside Syria beginning to plan for that day-after and beginning to plan for how they might quickly stand up at least that first stage of transition so that we could move on when Assad goes, because he will go.”

Full article: Britain and US plan a Syrian revolution from an innocuous office block in Istanbul (The Telegraph)

Big Russian fleet nears Syria. Iran to fight regime change as foreign forces pile up

Russian, Western and Arab forces were piling up on Syrian borders Wednesday, July 25, bringing closer a war confrontation which could spur the Assad regime into making good on its threat to use chemical weapons against “external aggression.”

Based on this reading, Moscow added its voice Tuesday to that of US President Obama and warned Bashar Assad against using chemical weapons in view of “its commitments under the international convention it ratified prohibiting the use of poisonous gases as a method of warfare.”

debkafile’s military sources: With operational intelligence deployment and electronic stations positioned inside Syria, the Russians are better placed than any other outsiders to know what is happening on Syria’s battlefields.

Their warning must therefore be tied to solid information confirming Washington’s assessment that Assad is dangerously close to deciding to use his chemical and biological weapons in a way that would precipitate a regional conflict.

Israel, Turkey and Jordan would be the first targets on his list.

The immediacy of the peril, debkafile’s military sources report, has speeded the arrival of Russian warships to Syria to counter a potential Western, Arab or Israeli assault on the embattled country.

The Russian Ministry of Defense, which rarely discloses Russian military movements outside its borders, announced early Wednesday morning, July 25 that a fleet of Russian warships had passed through the Strait of Gibraltar and entered the Mediterranean.

The fleet is headed by the anti-submarine and anti-aircraft Admiral Chabanenko warship and consists of another three vessels carrying a large number of Russian marines. This fleet will rendezvous with a Russian flotilla standing by in the Mediterranean since July 21, detached from Russian Black Fleet and composed of the Smetlivy figate and  two large landing craft loaded with Russian marines. This group awaited the main force before approaching Syria.

The fact that Russia is massing large numbers of marines off the Syrian coast looks as though a landing on Syrian soil is on Moscow’s cards.

The Russian marine contingent,  debkafile’s sources say, will stand ready – either to come to the aid of the Assad regime or to serve as a bargaining chip for a last-minute deal between Moscow and Washington for ending the war by establishing a transitional military regime in Damascus whose makeup would be agreed between them and Assad.

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Deputy Iranian Revolutionary GuardUS President Obama chief, Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, warned on Tuesday, July 24, that Tehran would not permit regime change in Damascus and if Syria’s enemies intervened, Iran would hit them hard. The Iranian commander pointed a finger at Saudi Arabia and Qatar, adding that the US and Israel are at the forefront of the comprehensive campaign against Syria but are being beaten back.

This was the first time Tehran had explicitly threatened military intervention in Syria.

Wednesday, Turkey shut its border crossings to Syria. Military sources in Ankara confirmed that massive Turkish military strength had been on the move toward the Syrian border.

Full article: Big Russian fleet nears Syria. Iran to fight regime change as foreign forces pile up (DEBKAfile)