Europe’s Next Generation Combat System

 

Former competitors are now collaborating against their new archenemy: the U.S.A. Should you be concerned?

Europe’s call for a European army raises various questions: How powerful would such an army be? What weaponry would it use? Would it be in support of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization? Or work against it? And finally, which nation would spearhead the endeavor: France or Germany?

The answer to these questions can already be seen in Europe’s arms industry.

The European Union’s joint military budget is already three times higher than Russia’s budget and approximately half of the United States’. And at this critical moment in history, Russia and the U.S. are being forced to make dramatic military cuts while Europe is boosting its spending.

Erdogan Warns Trump That Alliance Is at Risk as Tensions Climb

U.S. President Donald Trump, left, walks with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, ahead of an event in in Brussels, Belgium. (Photographer: Marlene Awaad/Bloomberg)

 

(Bloomberg) — Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned the U.S. that its decades-long alliance with the country is at risk after rising political tensions between the two nations erupted and helped stoke a financial crisis that shook global markets.

Erdogan, in an editorial Friday in the New York Times, cited Turkey’s cooperation with the U.S. dating back to the Cuban missile crisis and the Korean War as evidence of a long-standing partnership between the NATO allies. But he added that more recent disputes over a failed 2016 coup, the conflict in Syria and sanctions imposed this week against top Turkish officials and the country’s steel industry were straining that alliance to its breaking point.

“Before it is too late, Washington must give up the misguided notion that our relationship can be asymmetrical and come to terms with the fact that Turkey has alternatives,” Erdogan wrote. “Failure to reverse this trend of unilateralism and disrespect will require us to start looking for new friends and allies.”

New Satellite Images Reveal Russia Is Preparing For War In Kaliningrad

 

The July 16 summit in Helsinki, Finland, between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin offers a unique opportunity to de-escalate Cold War 2.0 between the United States and Russia.

Ahead of the summit, several reports have detailed a new alarming trend of Moscow’s rapid modernization efforts to improve its westernmost military facilities in Kaliningrad, a strategic enclave of Russian territory situated between Poland and the Baltics.

Last month, the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) published satellite images revealing significant upgrades to a nuclear weapons storage bunker situated at a secret facility in Kaliningrad.

Satellite Images Reveal Russia Upgrading Nuclear Bomb Storage At Kaliningrad

A buried nuclear weapons storage bunker in the Kaliningrad district has been under major renovation since mid-2016. (Source: Federation of American Scientists (FAS))

 

New satellite images appear to show Russia may have significantly modernized a nuclear weapons storage bunker and security system at a secret facility in Kaliningrad, a strategic enclave of Russian territory situated between Poland and the Baltics, as tensions between Moscow and Washington continue to escalate, according to a report from the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).

On Monday, the FAS published a brand new report revealing several satellite images detailing a significant renovation of what appears to be a buried active nuclear weapons storage bunker in Kaliningrad, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the Polish border.

Merkel Urges Europe to Step Up in Trump’s New World Order

Angela Merkel, Germany’s Chancellor and Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party leader, speaks at the CDU party conference in Essen, Germany (Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg)

 

(Bloomberg) — Chancellor Angela Merkel made a forceful pitch for Europe to play a more assertive role in global affairs as U.S. President Donald Trump dismantles the post-World War II order, setting the stage for a potential tense standoff at the Group of Seven summit this week.

The German leader again questioned the durability of trans-Atlantic relations by referring to eye-raising comments she made over a year ago in which she said that “the times when we could fully rely on others are to some extent over.” Those words, spoken at a beer-tent election rally, were a reaction to Trump hectoring European leaders for not spending enough on defense at a North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Brussels. Since then, more fuel has been added to the fire.

“That was my takeaway from the NATO summit, and in the meantime I continue to feel confirmed by my statement,” Merkel said in Munich on Wednesday, this time to a meeting of the European People’s Party, a grouping of center-right parties in the European Parliament.

US Navy Resurrects Its Cold War-Era Atlantic Fleet To Counter Russia

 

In a stunning surprise, the United States Navy announced Friday that it would reactivate its Second Fleet to counter the increasing threat from Russia.

Admiral John Richardson, chief of naval operations, said the fleet, deactivated in 2011, could oversee roughly 6,700,000 square miles of the Atlantic Ocean from the North Pole to the Caribbean Sea and from the East Coast of the United States to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Our National Defense Strategy makes clear that we’re back in an era of great power competition as the security environment continues to grow more challenging and complex,” said Admiral Richardson.

Massive Russian, NATO Wargames Set To Begin Amid Mutual Accusations Of Provocation

Zapad 2017 preparations

 

As the two old, cold war adversaries, Russia and NATO, prepare to begin massive war games to show off their respective military strengths, it was the UK’s turn to accuse Russia first of “testing the West” by conducting war games on NATO’s eastern flank in its biggest military exercise in four years. Speaking on BBC’s “The Andrew Marr Show” on Sunday, U.K. Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said that Russia’s exercise “is designed to provoke us, it’s designed to test our defenses, and that’s why we have to be strong. Russia is testing us and testing us now at every opportunity. We’re seeing a more aggressive Russia. We have to deal with that.”

In a testament to our hyperbolic times, Fallon’s statement also contained just a “little bit” of fake news: while Fallon said that more than 100,000 Russian and Belorussian troops are at the borders of North Atlantic Treaty Organization members, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin said last month that the so-called Zapad 2017 exercise Sept. 14-20 involves 13,000 troops, and that the drills are “purely of a defensive nature” according to Bloomberg.

NATO Splinters: Germany Says “Has No Choice But To Pull Out” Troops From Turkey’s Incirlik Airbase

 

Diplomatic relations between NATO members Germany and Turkey hit rock bottom on Monday when Germany’s foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel said his country has no choice but to begin the process of pulling its forces out of Turkey’s Incirlik air force base as the Turkish government will not allow all German lawmakers to visit troops there.

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The scandal erupted last Thursday, when Turkey’s foreign minister said it is not possible to allow German lawmakers to visit troops stationed at Turkey’s Incirlik air base now, although he said Ankara may reconsider if it sees “positive steps” from Berlin. It was not immediately clear just what Turkey’s “demands” or expectations, monetary or otherwise, were from Merkel for it to change its view. Ties between the NATO allies deteriorated sharply in the run-up to Turkey’s April 16 referendum that handed President Tayyip Erdogan stronger presidential powers.

Are NATO Members Paying Their Fair Share? (Spoiler Alert: No!)

This is why a European Army is coming.

 

 

Donald Trump is right to say America’s NATO allies aren’t paying their fair share. As Bloomberg notes, the alliance expects its members to spend 2% of GDP on defense; but it’s no secret that most of them don’t…

World War 3 Ready: Russia Forms New Military Task Force To Match NATO ‘Blow For Blow’ In Crimea

 

Russia appears to be readying itself for a very serious confrontation with NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), a confrontation that, if it should come to pass, many believe will be the opening stage of World War 3. And that confrontation just might occur in the Crimea, so Russia has not only increased its troop strength in the area, but it also created a new military task force just to go head-to-head with NATO forces.

Daily Star reported over the weekend that Russia’s defense minister, Sergey Shoigu, had informed the Defense Ministry in Moscow that a military task force comprised of four divisions, nine brigades, and 22 regiments had been formed in order to match the massing of alliance forces along the borders of the disputed region. Describing the task force as “self-sufficient,” Shoigu also told the Ministry that, due to the more than 200 military exercises conducted in the area since 2013, the new Russian task force would be able to match NATO blow for blow should hostilities begin.

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.

U.S. think tank RAND: Currently postured, NATO could not defend Baltic states

RAND researchers have conducted a series of wargames to examine the threat Russia may present to the Baltic republics and found that as currently postured, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization could not defend the territory, according to a RAND report titled “Reinforcing Deterrence on NATO’s Eastern Flank. Wargaming the Defense of the Baltics,” by David A. Shlapak and Michael Johnson.

“Russia’s recent aggression against Ukraine has disrupted nearly a generation of relative peace and stability between Moscow and its Western neighbors and raised concerns about its larger intentions. From the perspective of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the threat to the three Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — former Soviet republics, now member states that border Russian territory — may be the most problematic of these. In a series of war games conducted between summer 2014 and spring 2015, RAND Arroyo Center examined the shape and probable outcome of a near-term Russian invasion of the Baltic states. The games’ findings are unambiguous: As presently postured, NATO cannot successfully defend the territory of its most exposed members,” the analysts said.

The Terrorist Attacks That United Europe

Europe is forsaking a longtime ally as it prepares for all-out war.

The November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris caused a tremendous rift between America and the European Union. For the first time ever, a European nation—France—called on the European Union’s collective defense clause instead of turning to the American-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (nato) for help. This represents a stunning rejection of American leadership.

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The nation that benefits the most from France rejecting America is Germany. Germany has dominated the EU for years. France’s move will bring the European armies together in a way that the EU founders only dreamed of.

By invoking the EU’s collective defense clause rather than nato, French President François Hollande was declaring that Europe is more than just a junior partner in America’s defense arrangement. Europe is its own power. It has its own foreign relations, its own interests, and its own goals.

Most people didn’t recognize the significance of France’s decision to call on the EU instead of nato. But it is a choice that will have a massive negative impact on America—as well as Britain and the Jewish state of Israel. It will significantly alter the history of these nations, and of Europe.

Want to move your tank battalion to take on a threat? NATO’s got a form for that.

How unprepared is NATO in Europe for confrontation? Unprepared enough to where the refugees can move units quicker…

If you’ve been following Global Geopolitics long enough, you might have heard the term ‘unintelligent community’ mentioned quite often. That’s because it’s ill-equipped and caught ‘surprised’ with anything its adversaries do. The same can now be applied to the purged and redirected military under Obama. The U.S. military is now becoming a third-rate army by an administration who is determined that America will no longer remain a global superpower. America is in full retreat and the Sino-Soviet axis is filling in the gap.

And if you didn’t know the last American tanks from European soil were removed in 2013, now you do. Russia is determined to destroy NATO while NATO is determined to be unprepared.

 

Increasing NATO’s speed has become Lieutenant General Ben Hodges’ mantra.

Every time that Russia holds snap exercises moving tens of thousands of men across vast distances, the United States is surprised, the commander of the U.S. Army in Europe said in an interview last week. By contrast, the 28 countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are so tied up in red tape that it typically takes 15 days to get diplomatic clearance to move military equipment from one member state to the next. Cold War-era regulations mean Hodges still needs special permission to travel from his base in western Germany to Berlin.

“What we want is like a military Schengen zone,” the three-star U.S. general said, referring to the border-free travel regime adopted by most European Union countries. “Right now refugees can move across Europe faster than military convoys.”

Analysis: The real danger in Syria is not ISIS, but a war between major powers

There are many unpredictable aspects of the Syrian conflict, but the downing of the Russian bomber by Turkish jets on Tuesday was not one of them. Indeed, given the simultaneous military campaigns taking place in a relatively small swath of territory by Russian, American, French, Syrian, Iranian, and other forces, it is surprising that such an incident did not happen earlier. Nevertheless, the downing of a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 by Turkish jets marked the first attack on a Russian fighter aircraft by a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member state since 1953. Although this incident is not by itself sufficient to provoke an armed conflict between Turkey and Russia, it illustrates the main danger confronting the world in Syria, namely a conflagration between regional powers, many of which are armed with nuclear weapons.