A ‘Big Step Forward’ for Europe’s Vision of a Combined Military

A Bundeswehr soldier stands next to his machine gun at the airport near the Gao base in northern Mali. (Getty Images)

 

A ‘Big Step Forward’ for Europe’s Vision of a Combined Military

Defense ministers and foreign ministers from 25 European Union member nations took a “big step forward” on November 19 in the direction of a European military, initiating 17 new European defense projects, including a shared school for spies.

The projects on the official list are from the latest November 19 agreement and the previous March 6 agreement, all facilitated under Europe’s Permanent Structured Cooperation pact, which is a framework for increased military cooperation and development among EU member states.

Cyprus and Greece to create EU spy academy

Athens: new academy to provide ‘training in intelligence disciplines’ (Photo: Barcex)

 

EU defence and foreign ministers have agreed to create a joint intelligence training school and to develop new hardware, including drones and electronic warfare technology, as part of plans for what could one day be an “EU army”.

The “Joint EU Intelligence School” will “provide education and training in intelligence disciplines and other specific fields to EU member states intelligence personnel”, the EU Council said in a press release after ministers met in Brussels on Monday (19 November).

The project is to be led by Cyprus and Greece – two traditionally Russia-friendly states – at a time of heightened tension over Russian espionage operations in Europe and the Western Balkans, including assassination attempts in the UK and in Montenegro.

The EU foreign service already has a joint intelligence capability called IntCen.

World’s first ‘Quantum’ compass will supersede GPS

The MoD has been investing enormous amounts of money into constructing independent navigation devices, particularly for use on its nuclear submarines.

 

After millions of pounds of funding from the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) under the UK National Quantum Technologies Programme, British scientists have constructed what they claim to be humanity’s first quantum ‘compass,’ a navigational device independent of the satellite-based Global Positioning System (GPS).

The instrument, built by scientists at the Imperial College in London, England, is claimed to be able to ascertain the exact location of anything on Earth without relying on satellites, as does the GPS network.

Chinese Military Scientists Have Infiltrated “Five Eyes” Western Universities

 

Approximately 2,500 researchers from Chinese military universities have infiltrated Western universities over the past decade, focusing on the so-called “Five Eyes” group of countries, reports the Financial Times, citing a new report from Australian government-funded think tank, the Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).

According to the report, many of the Chinese researchers failed to disclose their military affiliations, while publishing a large volume of joint papers with Western scientists which can help Beijing’s technological ambitions. 

The UK is practicing cyberattacks that could black out Moscow

Cyber warfare is considered preferable to nuclear warfare.

 

British defense officials say they have practiced cyber war games that could shut off electricity in Russia’s capital, the Sunday Times (paywall) reports.

The measures are part of a wider range of strategies to hit back at an increasingly assertive Russia—accused of interfering with US elections, cyberattacks on Western targets, and poisoning a former spy on UK soil—without resorting to a full-blown nuclear attack.

Who Does America Belong to?

Not to Americans

The housing market is now apparently turning down. Consumer incomes are limited by jobs offshoring and the ability of employers to hold down wages and salaries.  The Federal Reserve seems committed to higher interest rates—in my view to protect the exchange value of the US dollar on which Washington’s power is based.  The arrogant fools in Washington, with whom I spent a quarter century, have, with their bellicosity and sanctions, encouraged nations with independent foreign and economic policies to drop the use of the dollar.  This takes some time to accomplish, but Russia, China, Iran, and India are apparently committed to dropping  or reducing the use of the US dollar.

Crime Rate In The U.K. Soars While 90% Of Recorded Crime Goes Uncharged

 

Homicide and crime rates – including sexual assaults, and knife and gun attacks – continue to rise in the United Kingdom, with 90% of recorded offenses not ending in charges.

A report published last week lays bare the shocking numbers – crimes resulting in charges sat at 11%, with the percentage falling two points in just a year to 9%; down from 15% in 2015.

Since March of this year and the 12 months before, only 443,000 crimes out of 4.6 million recorded resulted in charges.

Did the President Just End Theresa May’s Career?

 

He insists his comments to The Sun newspaper critical of the UK prime minister were ‘fake news’ that didn’t demonstrate his complete views.

The United Kingdom’s The Sun newspaper published a report today following an exclusive interview Thursday in which President Donald Trump criticized Prime Minister Theresa May’s approach to Brexit and how it may impact trade with the U.S.

More Dots

 

Interesting Twitter thread from “Lycaon” today. It lays out a series of dots (no better use of Twitter than laying out dots) that connects Clintons, various Trump-Russia actors, and money-laundering. I think Lycaon would do well to re-examine Bill Browder’s  hole-pocked alibi as “anti-Putin avenger” but his inclusion of HSBC, presented by a US Senate committee on July 17, 2012 as a money-laundering entity, and James Comey’s arrival at HSBC as director on March 4, 2013, and then, seven months later, Comey’s appointment as FBI director by President Obama is sequencing worth recalling.

In between, of course, HSBC paid a giant fine in exchange for a clean bill of health.

9 European States To Form Joint Military Intervention Force

Leopard II battle tank is pictured in action at the Oberlausitz training area in Weisskeissel. Source: Reuters

 

Nine European states – France, the UK, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Estonia, Spain and Portugal are going to establish a joint military intervention force, France’s Defense Minister Florence Parly has told the French newspaper Figaro.

“Defence Europe requires a common strategic culture … The deadlines and decisions in the EU are still much too long compared to the urgency that can arise from a critical situation in a country where Europeans would consider that there is a strong stake for their security,” she said.

Big Dots. Do They Connect?

 

Just came across an intriguing theory about Sergei Skripal, the former Soviet/Russian military intelligence agent who spied for Britain, and, along with his daughter Yulia, was nearly killed this spring by a dose of the nerve agent Novichok in the town of Salisbury, England, where they live.

In a March 21 interview on the John Batchelor Show, Gregory R. Copley, editor and publisher of Defense and Foreign Affairs, posited that Sergei Skripal is the unnamed Russian intelligence source in the Steele dossier.

Copley further explained (or tried to explain) to Batchelor (who kept cutting him off): “The people who wished to see Skripal become quiet were people in Washington, the Democratic National Committee, the Clinton campaign, and people around Christopher Steele himself. I’m not saying necessarily that MI6 or the British government had a witting hand in it, but there are too many people who had an axe to grind to make sure that Skripal did not –“

Facebook shared user data with Chinese firm despite warnings by US intelligence

 

The online social media company Facebook shares data about its users with a Chinese telecommunications company that has been flagged in United States government reports as a threat to security. The New York Times revealed on Tuesday that Facebook has been routinely giving access to the private data of its users to four Chinese companies since at least 2010. The paper said that the data-sharing agreement with Lenovo, Oppo, TCL, and Huawei Technologies, has its roots in 2007. That was the year when Facebook began an effort to entice cell phone hardware and software manufacturers to include Facebook-friendly apps and features in their products. As part of the agreement, Facebook gave cell phone manufacturers access to its users’ private data, including “religious and political leanings, work and education history and relationship status”, said the Times.

Trump announces strikes on Syria following suspected chemical weapons attack by Assad forces

Damascus sky lights up with surface to air missile fire as the U.S. launches an attack on Syria targeting different parts of the Syrian capital Damascus, Syria, early Saturday, April 14, 2018. (Hassan Ammar / AP)

 

The president did not specify a target for the strikes, but said the United States would aim to hit sites “associated with the chemical weapons capabilities” of Assad’s regime.

President Donald Trump on Friday ordered the United States military — in conjunction with France and the United Kingdom — to launch strikes on Syria in retaliation for a suspected chemical weapons attack by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad on a Damascus suburb last week.

The president did not specify a target for the strikes, but said the United States would aim to hit sites “associated with the chemical weapons capabilities” of Assad’s regime.

The US Fading into Irrelevance – A Good Thing for the World

 

Chaos reigns in the United States, spreading to its closest allies. The war amongst Western elites is in full swing, manifesting itself from commercial wars to failed diplomacy, empty threats of war, corruption, and announced military withdrawals and attacks.

To sum up the last few weeks of international events, it is worth comparing the direction taken by the multipolar troika of Russia, China and Iran, and the one taken by the fading unipolar order led by the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

World War 3: Britain sends THIRD warship to Asia-Pacific as tensions rise with North Korea

HMS Sutherland is being deployed to the Pacific (Beutner/ullstein bild via Getty)

 

THE UK has deployed a third navy warship to the Asia-Pacific as diplomatic tensions with North Korea continue to rise. HMS Albion will join HMS Sutherland and will help enforce UN sanctions against North Korea, as well as take part in joint training and exercises with regional allies.

The Ministry of Defence previously announced that HMS Argyll would also be deployed, arriving in the region later in the year to take part in an exercise with Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and Singapore.