Pentagon: Military Logistics System Not Ready for War With China or Russia

U.S. Marines participate in a military exercise / Getty Images

 

Defense Science Board warns military supply system ‘decayed’ and needs rapid upgrading

The strategic American military system for moving troops, weapons, and supplies over long distances has decayed significantly and needs rapid upgrading to be ready for any future war with China or Russia, according to a report by the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board.

A special task force on survivable logistics evaluated the military’s current airlift, sealift, and prepositioned equipment and supplies and found major problems with supporting forces during a “high-end” conflict.

Panic in Beijing: Caught off guard by Trump trade tactics, CCP courts Pentagon

Chinese supreme leader Xi Jinping with U.S. President Donald Trump. / Getty Images

 

As its relationship with other U.S. agencies sours amid President Donald Trump’s trade and twitter offensive, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has worked to maintain close ties to the Pentagon, U.S. defense officials said.

Beijing has stepped up contacts with the Pentagon in recent weeks as Defense Minister Wei Fenghe prepares to meet U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis in Washington before the end of the year.

“The Chinese are definitely eager to stay connected to the department,” a senior official said, according to Breitbart News.

Mattis: China’s Island Militarization Continues

James Mattis (Getty Images)

 

Beijing’s South China Sea encroachment on agenda for meetings in Southeast Asia

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis this week voiced new U.S. opposition to China’s continued militarization of islands in the South China Sea.

“We remain highly concerned with continued militarization of features in the South China Sea,” Mattis told reporters on Monday as he traveled to Vietnam.

Mattis also said China is using predatory economics to seek control over other nations.

China’s Strategic Force Gears Up for Space and Cyber War

Li Shangfu (3rd left) is seen in this photo / Getty Images

 

NDU report reveals PLA information warfare plans

China’s new Strategic Support Force highlights Beijing’s growing military might and plans to expand both power and influence using space, cyber, and information warfare in both peacetime and a future high-tech war, according to a Pentagon-sponsored study.

The new force, set up in late 2015, is not part of army, navy, air force, or missile force and is directly under the Communist Party’s Central Military Commission, according to a report published this week by the National Defense University.

China electronic spying threat

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe met last week in Beijing. The delegation traveling on the E-4B plane with Mr. Mattis had to take extraordinary security precautions. (Associated Press) Photo by: Mark Schiefelbein

 

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis‘ recent visit to China highlighted the security dangers posed by sophisticated Chinese electronic spying in the capital of Beijing.

Security precautions for those traveling with the defense secretary were extremely tight during his June 26-28 visit.

To prevent Chinese spying through cellphones or laptop computers, the 10 journalists traveling aboard the secretary’s Air Force E-4B nuclear command plane, a militarized Boeing 747, were prohibited from bringing any electronic devices that were taken off the aircraft during the two-day visit back onto the plane. Anything that used wireless connectivity was deemed potentially vulnerable to Chinese hacking.

China’s Most Powerful General, a Xi Jinping Henchman, Meets Mattis

Photo courtesy of the Defense Department

 

PLA leader purged scores of generals causing instability in world’s largest military

BEIJING—Gen. Xu Qiliang is China’s most powerful military boss and as vice chairman of the all-powerful Central Military Commission was the last meeting for Defense Secretary Jim Mattis during a two-day visit to China last week.

Xu greeted Mattis warmly at the ceremonial Chinese Defense Ministry building known as Bayi. The general showed little emotion and few clues to the growing tensions with the United States over Beijing’s buildup of missiles on disputed islands in the South China Sea.

American Military Aircraft Targeted By Lasers in Pacific Ocean, U.S. Officials Say

Officials said all the incidents occurred in and around the East China Sea, typically where the Chinese military or other Chinese civilians operate. An Air Force bomber, above, in August on a flight over Japan, the East China Sea and Korean Peninsula. Photo: Gerald Willis/U.S. Air Force/EPA/Shutterstock

 

U.S. officials wouldn’t definitively confirm Chinese personnel were behind laser incidents

WASHINGTON—Lasers have targeted pilots of American military aircraft operating over the western Pacific Ocean more than 20 times in recent months, U.S. officials say, following a series of similar incidents in which Pentagon officials said Chinese personnel used lasers against U.S. pilots in East Africa.

Officials said all of the incidents occurred in and around the East China Sea, typically where the Chinese military or other Chinese civilians operate. The laser signals directed at American aircraft appeared to be coming from fishing boats operating in the area and from shore, multiple officials said.

China Adds Advanced Missiles to South China Sea Islands

 

Pentagon plans major response to Chinese hegemony

China’s military has stepped up militarizing disputed islands in the South China Sea by deploying advanced missile systems on the Spratly islands, according to the Pentagon.

Defense officials disclosed to the Washington Free Beacon that the militarization has raised alarm bells about China’s creeping takeover of the strategic waterway used for some $5 trillion annually in international trade.

US struggles to counter Chinese maritime hegemony

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has spoken out against China’s strategy of “intimidation and coercion” in the South China Sea, including the deployment of anti-ship missiles, surface-to-air missiles and electronic jammers, and, more recently, the landing of nuclear-capable bomber aircraft at Woody Island. There are, Mattis warned, “consequences to China ignoring the international community.”

But what consequences? Two successive US administrations – Barack Obama’s and now Donald Trump’s – have failed to push back credibly against China’s expansionism in the South China Sea, which has accelerated despite a 2016 international arbitral tribunal ruling invalidating its territorial claims there. Instead, the US has relied on rhetoric or symbolic actions.

Bashar al-Assad warns US troops to leave Syria as he raises prospect of clash

Credit: AFP

 

The US should learn the lesson of Iraq, President Bashar al-Assad said on Thursday, threatening to expel American troops from Syria and retake areas from its Kurdish allies.

In the interview with RT, the Russian state’s international broadcaster, Assad raised the prospect of conflict with US forces if they do not leave Syria.

He vowed to recover territory where American troops have deployed, either through negotiations with Washington’s Syrian allies or by force.

Assad, who is backed by Russia and Iran, appears militarily unassailable in the war that has killed an estimated half a million people, uprooted around 6 million people in the country, and driven another 5 million abroad as refugees.

China in race to overtake the US in AI warfare

A Chinese-made CH-5 reconnaissance and combat drone and its compatible missiles at the 11th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai city in south China’s Guangdong province on November 2, 2016.

 

Beijing is pushing hard to integrate artificial intelligence and autonomous weapons – robotic arms capable of thinking and acting at the speed of light

Earlier this month Chinese supreme leader Xi Jinping met with senior military scientists as chairman of the all-powerful Central Military Commission.

During the meeting, the Chinese leader was photographed at the PLA Academy of Military Sciences shaking hands with Major General Li Deyi, a leading authority on artificial intelligence, or AI, and a key figure in the Chinese military’s effort to overtake the United States in the emerging field of advanced weapons.

The meeting between Xi and the military experts garnered little public attention.

Pentagon says Trump ordered Washington military parade

Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen listens as President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with law enforcement officials on the MS-13 street gang and border security, in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has asked the Pentagon to plan a grand parade of the U.S. armed forces in Washington this year to celebrate military strength, officials said Tuesday.

The Washington Post, which was first to report the plan, said Trump wants an elaborate parade this year with soldiers marching and tanks rolling, but no date has been selected.

North Korea conducts mass-evacuation drills as threat of war heightens

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un

 

North Korea has been conducting rare mass evacuation and black out drills throughout the country in preparation for war, it emerged this weekend.

Multiple sources told NK News that the drills have taken place in secondary and tertiary cities and towns, particularly along the east coast, but not in the capital city, Pyongyang.

Ignoring empty threats, Iran tightens its military noose around Israel

Hamas’ Saleh Arouri in Tehran.

 

Iran pressed ahead with its plans this week, regardless of the loud scorn and threats poured on Tehran from Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Cairo and Washington.

On Friday, Oct. 20, less than two weeks after Saleh Arouri, Deputy Chief of the Hamas political bureau, approved an Egyptian-sponsored reconciliation agreement between his party and the rival Fatah, he was leading a large Hamas delegation to Tehran.

Mattis to Army: ‘Stand ready’ if North Korea diplomacy fails

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis speaks during the opening ceremony of the AUSA annual meeting at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. on Monday. (Mike Morones)

 

America’s relationship with North Korea remains a diplomatic one, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said Monday, but he urged members of the military to be prepared in case the situation breaks down.

Mattis also used his keynote speech at the annual AUSA conference in Washington, D.C., to thank allies who have stood with the U.S. through the ages.

“It is right now a diplomatically, economic-sanctions-buttressed effort to try and turn North Korea off of this path,” Mattis told the audience. “What does the future hold? Neither you nor I can say.”