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Trump Facilitated Collapse of US-Russia Arms Control by Scrapping INF Treaty

Sputnik – 01.08.2024

WASHINGTON – Then-President Donald Trump made a “stupid mistake” by deciding to scrap the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, as the consequences of that fateful decision have been the collapse of strategic arms control policies between the United States and Russia, analysts told Sputnik.

The INF treaty, signed between the Soviet Union and the US in 1987, banned the countries from developing and possessing ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges from 500-5,500 kilometers.

In 2019, Trump withdrew the US from the treaty, which prompted Russia to suspend its participation in the Cold War-era accord in response.

August 2 marks the fifth anniversary of the US’ formal withdrawal from the INF Treaty.

Restraint Abandoned

“The consequences have been that strategic arms control policies between Russia and the US/NATO have largely been abandoned and both sides have developed nuclear capable intermediate range missiles that raise the likelihood that they will be resorted to in a potential escalating conflict like in Ukraine,” former CIA analyst, founder and chair of the Council for the National Interest Philip Giraldi said.

There were sharp differences of opinion in the Trump administration on whether to retain the treaty, in spite of both sides’ claims that there was “cheating,” Giraldi recalled. “The neocons predictably won the argument.”

Back in the 1980s, despite hawkish governments in London and Bonn, popular sentiment across Europe, especially in Germany overwhelmingly favored creating the treaty, Giraldi emphasized.

“Interestingly enough, I was in the CIA German station in Hamburg 1982-5 when the whole issue of intermediate range missiles, which theoretically allowed for no warning devastating nuclear capable attack, was being debated,” he said.

“There were huge demonstrations in all German cities against the deployment and in favor of an agreement,” Giraldi reported. “The US Consulate General was located near Hamburg’s central lake, the Alster and thousands of demonstrators would gather along the lakefront and storm the front of the building by crossing the access road that surrounded the lake.”

Attempt to Show He’s ‘Tough’ on Russia

American University in Moscow President Edward Lozansky, a former Soviet nuclear physicist, noted that Trump had heeded his two most influential advisers at the time, CIA chief and then secretary of state Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton, both of whom were determined to kill the treaty.

“One has to look at Trump’s two critical foreign policy and security advisers at the time, Pompeo and Bolton. Trump foolishly appointed them to prove he is tough on Russia. He made many other stupid mistakes for the same reason,” Lozansky said.

One can excuse Trump for being a “political novice who miraculously won in 2016 and found himself in an ocean of sharks,” he added.

The recent events show that “the Deep State learned the 2016 lessons” and the chances of Trump repeating the miracle of that year are quickly decreasing, at least for now, according to Lozansky.

“Almost each of the next 100 days till November 5 elections might bring unexpected events, not all of them bright for America and mankind,” the expert concluded.

August 2, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

INF Treaty Stood in Way of Plans to Militarize Europe, Hold Russia Back – Ex-DoD Analyst

Sputnik – 02.08.2024

WASHINGTON – The United States scrapped the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty five years ago with the aim of expanding NATO further eastward, pressing Russia economically and militarily, and cementing America’s global hegemony, veteran Pentagon analyst and retired US Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski told Sputnik.

August 2 marks the fifth anniversary of the US’s formal withdrawal from the INF Treaty.

“This [the pullout from the treaty] was due to the US desire (led by neoconservatives in the State Department and elsewhere in the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations) to expand NATO eastward, as well to engage militarily on Russia’s European border with both conventional and nuclear arms, specifically via Ukraine,” Kwiatkowski said.

The military and economic rise of China, a neoconservative theme for the past 30 years, required in the eyes of hawkish US military planners a nuclear offensive line in Eastern Europe to hold Russia “captive,” Kwiatkowski explained.

“The INF Treaty always stood in the way of this,” she said.

Russia had formally complained of continual US violations of the INF Treaty since 2014, but this was information most Americans and Europeans never saw, and most were not even interested in, Kwiatkowski noted.

“The consequences have been straightforward and dangerous. First, both the United States and Russia are now actively engaged in an expensive competition in the INF field and other new missile technology arenas,” she said.

Unlike in 1987, Russian technological and economic capabilities in this space now exceed those of the United States, Kwiatkowski assessed.

“Instead of US-Russia treaties that could engage and limit war preparation, we have NATO expansion, including an attempt to NATO-ize former INF signatory Ukraine,” she said.

After two post-Cold War batch accessions to the NATO alliance in 1999 and 2004, the accessions of six new member countries since 2009 have created a larger “border” between Russia and NATO, Kwiatkowski cautioned.

“Peace and diplomacy were now not only verboten, or forbidden but for five years have been institutionally impossible in Europe, thanks in part to the elimination of the INF Treaty and abnormally weak and intellectually impoverished US and NATO leadership over the same time frame,” she concluded.

The INF treaty, signed between the Soviet Union and the US in 1987, banned the countries from developing and possessing ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges from 500-5,500 kilometers. In 2019, then-President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the treaty, accusing Russia of non-compliance. In response to the US decision, Russia suspended its participation in the Cold War-era accord.

August 2, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Shooting down Russian missiles is ‘act of war’ – Ritter

RT | July 31, 2024

Vladimir Zelensky’s idea to have Poland shoot down Russian missiles would get NATO directly involved in the conflict with Moscow, former US Marine and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter has said.

Ukraine’s leader has been asking his Western partners for a “defense shield” for months. He claimed to have finally received a commitment from Warsaw in early July, as part of a security pact. Poland has said it would not target Russian missiles without NATO approval, which the US-led bloc has yet to give.

“Zelensky is operating on the assumption that NATO can have Patriot missiles in Poland that can shoot down Russian missiles that are headed towards militarily sensitive targets in the vicinity of Lviv,” Ritter told YouTube host Danny Haiphong in an interview posted on Tuesday.

“He doesn’t understand: that’s an act of war,” Ritter added. “That’s Russian military equipment, on a Russian military mission, in support of a Russian national security objective.”

Shooting down those missiles, even locking on to them with radar, would make NATO “literally a party to the conflict,” Ritter explained.

The US-led bloc has been trying to maintain a pretense that it’s not directly involved in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, despite donating billions of dollars worth of weapons, equipment and ammunition to Kiev’s armed forces and in some cases literally paying the salary of Ukrainian government employees.

Kiev is trying to have NATO set up a de facto “no fly zone” over western Ukraine, Ritter argued, which he described as “something Russia simply won’t tolerate.”

“Zelensky is just desperate right now, so he’s trying to invent rules of engagement,” Ritter concluded.

Ukrainian forces have been suffering steady setbacks along the front for weeks, with no prospect of replenishing their losses in either men or materiel.

The first handful of F-16 fighters reportedly arrived on Wednesday and will most likely be armed with modern US missiles. Zelensky has already complained that he would need more than 100 jets to actually make a difference, however.

Ritter is a former US Marine Corps major who served as a UN weapons inspector. He famously disagreed with the foreign policy establishment in Washington in the early 2000s, insisting that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction – a pretext the US later used to invade the country. He has been a RT contributor and saw his passport seized by the US government when he tried to attend the St. Petersburg International Security Forum in June.

July 31, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Okinawa on Fire: Division Brewing in Japan Over US Militarizing & Nuclearizing

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 31.07.2024

The US and Japan have made further steps towards closer military integration and an extension of Washington’s nuclear umbrella over its ally. Their increased military buildup in the Asia-Pacific region means a greater risk for war, particularly nuclear war, warns Okinawan rights activist Rob Kajiwara.

In the wake of their Security Consultative Committee (“2+2”) July 28 meeting in Tokyo, the US and Japan announced the strengthening of military ties and upgrading of the US Forces Japan (USFJ) to a warfighting command.

“The US and Japan are increasing the threat of war in the region,” Robert Kajiwara, an Okinawan rights activist and founder of the Peace For Okinawa Coalition, told Sputnik, stressing that the military buildup has nothing to do with Japan’s security and national interests.

Actually, the US is using Japan as a bulwark against Russia, China and North Korea in a bid to maintain its dominance in the Asia Pacific region, according to the pundit. “The world is seeking to become multipolar, but the US is intent on doing whatever it can to maintain hegemony,” he noted.

The American and Japanese delegations also discussed extending the US nuclear umbrella over Japan. While the US and Japan have coordinated on the issue since 2010 within the framework of the Extended Deterrence Dialogue (EDD), most recently the US has doubled down on its nuclear umbrella in the region.

It is expected that this year the US and Japan will specify under what conditions the US will use its nukes to “protect” Japan, according to Newsweek.

For its part, Chinese media believes Washington is planning to deploy nuclear weapons in their military bases in Japan, again. The “extended deterrence” means nothing but the US intent to use Japan as an outpost to strengthen its nuclear deterrence in Northeast Asia, according to Global Times.

Between 1954 and 1972, the US bases on Okinawa hosted a staggering 19 types of nuclear arms. In 2015, the US government officially admitted the fact that it stored hundreds of nuclear warheads in Japan during the Cold War. At the height of the Vietnam War, around 1,200 nuclear weapons were stationed in Okinawa.

“If there’s any country that should be against nuclear arms, it should be Japan, given the use of nuclear weapons against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan should be strongly against the storing of nuclear weapons in its territory. Unfortunately, Japan hasn’t learned anything from World War II and appears destined to repeat its past mistakes,” the pundit argued.

Why Okinawa is Important for the US

Okinawa, which is part of the Ryukyu island chain, is of utmost strategic importance for the US as it serves as a stronghold for the Pentagon’s operations in the Western Pacific and deployment of troops directly to the Taiwan Straits and to the Korean Peninsula.

The US military installations in the region – which American troops have occupied since the late 1940s – were crucial for Washington’s invasions of Vietnam and North Korea in the past.

The US air and naval bases on Okinawa are located in close proximity to China’s mainland and even closer to Taiwan Island. Furthermore, the Ryukyu island chain presents a natural “wall”, allowing the US military to “control” China’s passage into the Pacific Ocean.

While Tokyo and Washington name Russia, China and North Korea as potential “threats” to the region’s stability, a considerable chunk of Japanese citizens think otherwise, Kajiwara said, referring to Okinawa Prefecture, a home to numerous US military bases and facilities – over 70% of their total number in Japan.

“The overwhelming majority (somewhere between 70-90%) of Ryukyuans [another name for Okinawans] do not consider Russia, China, or North Korea to be military threats,” the activist stressed.

Okinawans Oppose US Bases and Japan’s Militarization

Ryukyuans have opposed the US militarization of the island for decades, citing security and environmental issues, as well as repeated criminal acts committed by US troops against local residents.

In September 1995, three US soldiers kidnapped and raped a 12-year-old girl in Okinawa, prompting prefecture-wide rallies which brought together 92,000 protesters. This year, two rape cases committed by US soldiers against an Okinawan minor and a woman came to light in June. The first occurred in December 2023 and remained muted by the US military for almost six months.

“The US and [Japan’s central government] covered this up until after Okinawa Prefecture’s recent election,” said Kajiwara. “They wanted to avoid negative publicity before or during the election in order to prevent the [ruling] Liberal Democratic Party from losing votes. Is this democracy? Can the US and Japan rightly call this democratic?”

In another snub of Okinawans’ democratic freedoms, Japan’s central government overruled the Okinawan authorities’ ban on building a new US military base at Henoko-Oura Bay near Nago in 2023. In September last year, Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki sought international backing at a UN session, arguing that the concentration of the US military forces in the prefecture threatens peace.

“My petition against the construction of the military base at Henoko received over 212,000 signatures,” Kajiwara said. “The 2019 Referendum in Okinawa resulted in over 70% of Okinawans voting against the Henoko base. In spite of all this, the US and Japan continually ignore the voices of Ryukyuans.”

Who are Okinawans and Why Do They Differ From Japanese

Okinawa was previously an independent Ryukyu kingdom, which was conquered and annexed by Japan at the end of the 19th century, the expert pointed out.

Ryukyuans have our own history, culture, languages, values, and identity. According to Kajiwara, Ryukyu has a tradition of being a “bridge of nations” with the focus on mutually-beneficial trade and diplomacy. “Whereas Japan has a long history of warfare and samurai bushido culture, Ryukyu banned the public carrying of weapons during the 15th century in order to promote peace,” the pundit remarked.

“In 1879, Japan invaded Ryukyu as the first of its colonial conquests… From 1879 until 1945, Ryukyu had to deal with imperial Japanese militarism,” he said. “During World War II, Japan deliberately placed a heavy amount of military presence in Ryukyu with the intent of sacrificing Ryukyuans in order to ‘save Japan’.”

This resulted in the Battle of Okinawa in 1945, which amounted to nothing short of the Ryukyuan genocide, according to the activist.

“At least 123,000 Uchinaanchu (Native Okinawans) were killed during a time frame lasting only around three months, which was around one-third of the population at the time. Japanese soldiers deliberately killed Ryukyuan men, women, children, and elderly, claiming they were ‘Chinese spies,’ using them as human shields, and forcing thousands to commit suicide. It is said that every Okinawan family lost someone during the battle. Many of my own relatives were also killed,” Kajiwara continued.

Those who survived were sent to concentration camps by the US occupation forces. During the period from the end of 1945 to 1947 locals returned to their land to find many of their homes and farms bulldozed flat and turned into US military facilities. According to some estimates, at least 40,000 Okinawan landowners lost their land and were not compensated for the loss. The 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty signed between Japan and the Allies “legitimized” the US occupation of Okinawa.

“From 1945 until 1972 Ryukyu was under direct US military rule. Since 1972 Ryukyu has been under joint US and Japanese rule. This, of course, has caused great hardship for Ryukyuans, such as economic deprivation, environmental destruction, water poisoning, military accidents, and crime,” he said.

Currently, Ryukyuans fear that the US-Japanese military buildup will invite another devastating war to their land, as per the expert.

“As we speak, Japan is continuing the construction of a new airfield at Henoko, paving over the coral reef in order to build it. The Okinawan dugong, an endangered creature, is being driven into extinction by this. This airfield, along with missiles being stationed around Ryukyu, poses a direct threat to Russia, China, and North Korea. So you see, the US and Japan really have no intention of decreasing Ryukyu’s military burden at all.”

Kajiwara emphasized that he and his team are continuing to raise awareness about the risks of the US-Japanese growing militarization, adding that Okinawans remain hostages to Tokyo’s warmongering. “We discuss all these things in our upcoming documentary film, ‘Occupied Okinawa.’ The film will be entered into international film festivals around the world starting in September,” the pundit concluded.

July 31, 2024 Posted by | Film Review, Illegal Occupation, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Pentagon trying to hide latest hypersonic test failure, says results ‘unclear’

By Drago Bosnic | July 31, 2024

The Pentagon just tested a hypersonic weapon, but refuses to disclose whether it was successful or not. It doesn’t even want to specify which system was involved or if there was an actual launch, as the US military often runs ground tests and presents them as “successful weapon launches”. In a previous test, the US Army’s “Dark Eagle”, a ground-based hypersonic weapon, failed miserably, forcing the Pentagon to go back to the drawing board. The initial plan was to have the weapon ready in the next two months, a year later than originally planned. The US Army and Navy are running a joint Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) program which aims to save costs by using the Common-Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB). However, the US military simply cannot master the technologies needed to make an operational weapon. Apart from dozens of failures, there are also regular cancelations of tests (just last year, there were three scrubbed test launches).

Last month, the Pentagon announced it supposedly conducted a “successful test” of the C-HGB designed for both the US Army’s “Dark Eagle” and the US Navy’s IRCPS (Intermediate Range Conventional Prompt Strike). However, it released no data about the launch, prompting many to question the validity of its claims. US military sources report that “there has been no known full end-to-end test of the missile involving a production-representative launch system”. The latest test of the unknown hypersonic weapon leaves much to be desired, with a US defense official telling The War Zone that “this test was an essential benchmark in the development of operational hypersonic technology” and that “vital data on the performance of the hardware and software was collected that will inform the continued progress toward fielding hypersonic weapons”. The source refused to provide any specifics, including the exact date, which is speculated to be July 25.

Combined with public warning notices and using online flight tracking software, observers concluded that the weapon was launched from Cape Canaveral precisely on July 25. The presence of several US Navy and NASA aircraft tracking the test on that day also supports this hypothesis. Observers and military experts mostly agree that the weapon in question was indeed the LRHW equipped with the C-HGB. Although this is yet to be explicitly confirmed by the US military, the previous aborted “Dark Eagle” tests were supposed to take place at Cape Canaveral. The concept of the missile is essentially a copy of Russia’s “Avangard” HGV (hypersonic glide vehicle), only on a much smaller scale and range. However, unlike Moscow, the US is incapable of producing an operational weapon. The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) repeatedly criticized the Pentagon for its incompetence and warned about numerous delays and cost overruns.

The US military is regularly getting ahead of itself and failing to induct new weapon systems. Back in 2021, the US Army reactivated missile units that have been dormant since the (First) Cold War and deployed “Dark Eagle” launchers without missiles, expecting the weapon to be ready in months. However, it’s been three years since then and all data indicates that the missile won’t be ready before 2026 (in the best-case scenario). As a result, the US now lags not only behind China, but even North Korea and Iran. Some experts say that this could partially be because various US companies refuse to cooperate and share data. As for the US inferiority to Russian hypersonic weapons, it’s now measured in decades, a fact that not even Western experts deny. Still, the mainstream propaganda machine regularly talks about the US military’s plans to “dominate hypersonic weapons” with missiles such as the “Dark Eagle”, even though the Pentagon is yet to conduct a verifiable successful launch.

The US Army insists that the weapon will reach speeds of at least Mach 17 and a range of around 2,800 km. This falls within the previously banned intermediate-range missiles that the US is now deploying in Germany, sparking another Cold War-style missile crisis in Europe. However, apart from regular systems such as the “Typhon”, the US is unable to field advanced 21st-century hypersonic weapons, in part because it’s using outdated techniques, as reported by some analysts. Both the US Army and Navy are now uncertain about when (or whether) the LRHW or IRCPS could enter operational service. The previous three test failures were blamed on the launcher rather than the missile itself. However, as previously mentioned, this is a common practice, as the US military is now regularly reporting about either “successful booster tests” (which is not a hypersonic weapon), or simply lying about a “successful launch” which is then followed by several consecutive failures.

The mainstream propaganda machine is trying its best to hide the embarrassment with pompous articles about “Putin fearing US weapons”. The latest such text was published just days before the failed launch of July 25. Earlier this year, US media talked about “unprecedented launches”, only for these chest-thumping titles to be replaced by complete silence to avoid having to give humiliating explanations as to what went wrong. In the meantime, Russian hypersonic weapons keep obliterating illegally deployed NATO personnel across Ukraine. The US military has been having issues with fielding advanced weapons for decades, particularly when it comes to missiles. The long-running problems with its Military Industrial Complex have resulted in its inability to design even basic ICBMs. Approximately half a decade ago, I argued that the Pentagon is approximately 15-20 years behind Moscow in hypersonic technologies and that it won’t field a weapon before 2030.

Although many thought such a prognosis was too far-fetched at the time, it seems this scenario is likelier than ever before. In the last two years alone, there have been at least half a dozen failures, including those reported in GAO’s latest reviews. There are claims of a “successful test” in June, but footage shows that none of the planned ground or sea-based launchers were used, once again prompting the informed public to question the validity of such claims. All this is only reinforcing the fact that the US has fallen decades behind its geopolitical adversaries. The miserable failure of its pompously announced “Super Duper” missile shows just how widespread these troubles are in various US hypersonic programs. After the cancelation of the AGM-183A (better known as the ARRW), the US Air Force stated it would be shifting away from it to “focus its efforts on the development of an air-breathing Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM)”, which is a joint effort with several Australian companies.

However, this program is also running into numerous challenges and is unlikely to be ready any time soon. To ease the humiliation at least a bit, the US has been trying to justify Russia’s advantage in these systems by using rather pathetic excuses, such as the laughable claim that Moscow “stole” non-existent American hypersonic technologies. However, President Vladimir Putin announced that the Kremlin was developing hypersonic weapons back in 2004, when such statements were met with ridicule in the political West. Despite these ludicrous public displays of false “superiority”, the US secretly kept sending spies to steal Russian hypersonic secrets. For years, American intelligence has also been trying to get Russian scientists to sell their secrets or even recruit them to help the struggling US programs. Such attempts have been futile for the most part, but Washington DC doesn’t have much of a choice. In the meantime, all it can do is lie about “shooting down” Russian hypersonic weapons.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

July 31, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | | Leave a comment

UAE, Israel expand spy bases in Yemen’s Socotra under US-sponsorship: Report

The Cradle | July 29, 2024

The UAE has, since 7 October, stepped up work on joint Emirati-Israeli military and intelligence infrastructure on the Socotra Archipelago off the coast of Yemen, Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar reported on 29 July.

The UAE has sought to establish control over the strategic archipelago, and has, over the past few years, begun constructing – in coordination with Tel Aviv – military and intelligence sites on the islands of the Socotra Archipelago, including the Island of Socotra itself.

According to the Al-Akhbar report, other Gulf Arab countries are involved in Emirati-Israeli plans for the archipelago, which comes as part of “an alliance being established … under an American umbrella.”

“The archipelago, in addition to other Yemeni islands and ports, is a central point in [this alliance] … the formation of the aforementioned alliance has become more urgent for all its parties,” Al-Akhbar writes, adding that since the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October, “they accelerated the construction of its features, led by an Emirati-Israeli military base being built on Abd al-Kuri Island.”

Abd al-Kuri Island is the second largest island in the Archipelago after Socotra.

The “ultimate goal” of the project is “to link the armies and security services of Israel and the concerned Arab countries under the umbrella of US Central Command.”

The report adds that in late December last year, a UAE-flagged landing ship – designed for the deployment of military personnel and equipment – arrived at Socotra Island, remaining there until early January.

It then headed west towards Abd al-Kuri and anchored until 11 January, heading back to Socotra two days later. It then returned to the UAE on 18 January.

“It concealed its signal while stationed off the island’s shores, and remained this way until it reappeared again on 25 December in the Arabian Sea heading north, which suggested that it was carrying out suspicious activity at the time. Information indicates that the ship’s trips were intended to transport military supplies and specialized personnel supervising the development of an Emirati base.”

Following 7 October, a new pier and a helicopter landing pad were constructed on Abd al-Kuri, as well as an airstrip, which was revealed in satellite imagery released in March this year.

“This expansion allows for the accommodation of larger American military cargo aircraft and strategic bombers, such as the American C-5M Super Galaxy and B-1 bombers that were recently used in retaliatory attacks in Syria and Iraq. New housing and buildings were also built,” according to the report.

This is not the first report indicating Washington’s involvement in the militarization of the Socotra Archipelago. Sky News Arabia reported in March that Washington is looking to establish a presence in Socotra in response to Ansarallah and the Yemeni Armed Forces’ pro-Palestine operations.

An in-depth investigation released by The Cradle in March 2023 details the Emirati–Israeli presence on the Socotra archipelago.

The Al-Akhbar report comes as the forces of Yemen’s Sanaa government – which are aligned with Ansarallah – have been vowing a response to the recent Israeli strikes on the western Yemeni port of Hodeidah, which was carried out in response to a deadly Yemeni drone attack on Tel Aviv.

Sanaa has imposed a blockade on all shipping heading to Israeli ports in support of the people and resistance in Gaza, and has vowed not to stop until the genocidal war against Palestinians in the strip comes to an end.

It has also targeted the Israeli port city of Eilat with dozens of drones and missiles since the start of the war.

The Yemeni army has also been attacking US and UK warships in response to the violent bombing campaign that Washington and London began against Yemen in January. US-UK airstrikes have since failed to deter Yemen’s operations.

July 29, 2024 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

INTERVIEW: Basil Valentine & Prof. Glenn Diesen – EU Childishly Boycotts Budapest

21Wire | July 26, 2024

TNT Radio guest host Basil Valentine speaks with Professor and political scientist Glenn Diesen, to discuss the EU’s unprecedented efforts to punish Hungary, one of its members, for entertaining diplomatic talks with the Russian Federation. They talk about Western diplomacy and how it is no longer about appeasement but about schooling peers and near-peer enemies on compliance. They touch upon the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban’s strong relationship with former U.S. President Trump who if elected, will favour negotiation with the Russians to bring an end to the Russo-Ukrainian conflict to avoid WWIII and a possible nuclear holocaust.

More from Glenn:
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July 29, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

US Navy Drops Details on Pricey Missiles and Bombs It’s Using Against Yemen’s Warriors

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 27.07.2024

The US and Britain have been bombing Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen since January, killing and maiming scores of civilians and targeting hundreds of militia sites but failing to “degrade” the Houthis missile and drone capabilities, or to stop their months-long partial blockade of the Red Sea in support of Palestine.

The US Navy has revealed new details about the weapons systems it has been using in the ongoing US-UK bombing campaign against the Houthis.

According to information shared with the Navy Times, F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets aboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, which left the Middle East and steamed home last month after a nine-month long deployment in the Red Sea area, used the AIM-9X infrared-guided heat-seeking missile to target Houthi kamikaze drones.

The AIM-9X is a variant of Raytheon’s widely used AIM-9 Sidewinder short-range air-to-air missile. The weapon has a per unit price of between $430,800 and $472,000, making it between 215 and 236 times the cost of the estimated $2,000-each price of a Houthi attack drone.

The Navy also confirmed the deployment of its Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile, or AARGM, also launched from Super Hornets aircraft, against Houthi air defenses. Produced by Northrup Grumman, these ground attack weapons have a per missile price of $874,000.

The Navy did not provide any details on the Houthi systems targeted by these weapons, The militia’s arsenal is thought to consist mostly of older Soviet-era SAMs and anti-aircraft guns, similarly dated radars, and Yemeni-built copies of Iranian missile and MANPADS designs.

Another weapon used by the Super Hornets in their campaign is the AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon – a glide bomb possessed by the US Navy and Air Force and by the air forces of more than half a dozen of Washington’s allies. The Navy said the Raytheon-made missiles being used against the Houthis are the latest, AGM-154C variant, which cost roughly $719,000 each. The Navy did not specify what kinds of targets the munition was used to attack, but the inertial and GPS-guided, terminal infrared homing-equipped weapons are designed for use against both stationary ground targets and moving targets at sea.

Apart from their machinegun-armed speedboats, the Houthis don’t have a navy to speak of, and their naval drones aren’t the fancy, $250,000 apiece, custom-built unmanned vehicles possessed by NATO countries. Instead, the militia has improvised by fitting ordinary speedboats with remote controls, packing them with explosives and launching them toward their enemies, with the total cost of such weapons not exceeding $30,000 (or about 24 times less than the US munitions deployed to dispatch them).

The imbalance in pricing between the Houthis’ guerilla warfare-purposed weapons and the US’s sleek, arms expo showroom-class air-launched missiles and bombs parallels the chasm between the surface-to-air missiles the US Navy has been using and the Yemeni militia’s drones.

In explosive testimony by US air and missile defense officials to Congress in May, Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces Angus King lambasted the state of affairs in which the US military has been forced to use $4.3 million SM-6 interceptor missiles to take down $20,000 Houthi UAVs.

“In the Red Sea, the Houthis are sending $20,000 drones and we’re shooting them down with missiles that cost $4.3 million. The math doesn’t work on that, gentlemen. It just doesn’t work. What are we thinking?” King asked. The lawmaker urged the Pentagon to urgently ramp up the development of directed energy weapons instead.

US Navy expenditures on their policing mission in the Middle East beginning after October 7 and the start of the Israel-Gaza war have surpassed $1 billion, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro told the Senate Appropriations Committee in April.

The US-led operation against the Houthis shows no sign of slowing down, but neither does the militia’s resolve against Washington and its allies. US Central Command announced on Friday that American forces had destroyed six Houthi aerial drones, and three uncrewed surface vessels, off the Yemeni coast. Also Friday, hundreds of thousands Yemenis gathered in the streets of Sanaa and other cities in solidarity with the Houthis’ operations against the US and Israel.

France’s Le Monde newspaper wrote in a piece Friday that Western powers had proven “powerless to halt Houthi attacks,” with Western warships’ presence in the Red Sea and strikes on the militia said to have “failed to deter the rebel militia.”

The glum attitude comes in the wake of reports in US business media last week that CENTCOM chief General Michael Erik Kurilla had written a letter to his boss, Lloyd Austin, and urged Washington to ramp up its economic, diplomatic and military pressure on the Houthis, admitting that the Western coalition’s operations to date had “failed” to stop the militia.

July 27, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

‘Americans, Please, Go Home’ – German Politician on US Deploying Missiles in Germany

Sputnik – 27.07.2024

The Pentagon’s decision to begin rotating deployments of long-range missiles in Germany starting from 2026 has caused a stir in the media and in the public, prompting Germans to doubt the necessity of such a step and question US motives.

Chairman of the German Council for Constitution and Sovereignty Ralph Thomas Niemeyer has called for shutting down US military facilities in Germany, noting that Washington is using them to carry out its own conflicts.

“We saw the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and now Ukraine being fought from German territory,” Niemeyer told Sputnik. “From the Ramstein Air Base and from other places such as Wiesbaden, Grafenwöhr and Stuttgart [locations with US military sites]. It would be impossible if they were not present there. So I am all for saying, ‘Please go home’.”

The German politician believes that Donald Trump taking office for a second term would be a good opportunity for Germany to gain more independence from Washington, since Trump “does not want to spend too much on the troop deployment either.”

“Trump voiced all this during his last presidential term… He could have gone as far as shutting them [US military bases in Germany] down. That is what we are interested in. We would say: ‘Sure, Americans, please, go home. Be our friends, but do not occupy us anymore,” he emphasized.

Without its own constitution, the country cannot have a genuine sovereignty, Niemeyer also stated, indicating this need for Germany.

The German Council for Constitution and Sovereignty has advocated for replacing the 1949 Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany. This law was viewed as a temporary substitute for a full-fledged constitution, but is still in act.

July 27, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Scholz’s views on Ukraine ‘simple-minded’ – Lavrov

RT | July 27, 2024

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz “is known for his simple-minded ideas,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said at a press conference in Vientiane, Laos.

He was commenting on a statement by Scholz earlier in the week about the possibility of abandoning the deployment of US missiles in Germany if Russia ends its military operation against Kiev.

Berlin and Washington announced earlier in July that US cruise missiles will be stationed in Germany from 2026. The deployment of these weapons had been banned under the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, but Washington withdrew from the agreement in 2019. Russia abided by the treaty for several years after the US withdrawal. In June, President Vladimir Putin warned that Moscow might resume production of previously banned missile systems in response to the “hostile actions” of the US.

At a press conference in Berlin earlier this week, Scholz dismissed concerns that the plans could further escalate tensions with Russia. He argued that Moscow must first end its military operation against Kiev to prevent the deployment of US long-range missiles in Germany.

Lavrov said, “no one asked Scholz whether the Germans want this deployment or not.” “He again, simple-mindedly, when the news came out, said: ‘I welcome the US decision to deploy the missiles in Germany’… he did not hide the fact that the decision was American,” the minister stated.

Lavrov stressed that the problem is not the deployment of the missiles, explaining that Moscow’s military operation aims “to eliminate threats to Russia’s security that were created in Ukraine, [where] NATO military bases were planned to be deployed, including in the Sea of Azov.”

He went on to say that the operation also has the goal of protecting the population of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, which have since joined Russia following referendums in 2022.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov previously said that Moscow reserves the right to deploy missiles with nuclear warheads if the US goes ahead with plans to station longer-range missiles in Germany.

July 27, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Pentagon reacts to Russia-China bomber patrols near Alaska

RT | July 26, 2024

Russian and Chinese bombers jointly operating in international airspace near the coast of Alaska is a sign of their expanding military cooperation, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has said, adding that Washington is “concerned” by the development.

On Wednesday, two Russian Tupolev TU-95 long-range bombers and two Chinese H-6 bombers were tracked and intercepted by US and Canadian fighter jets. The aircrafts were carrying out joint air patrols over the waters of the Chukchi and Bering Seas, as well as the North Pacific.

According to the Pentagon chief, it was the first time that Chinese bomber aircraft have flown within the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone, and the first time Chinese and Russian jets have taken off from the same base in northeast Russia.

“This is the first time that we’ve seen these two countries fly together,” Austin told a press conference on Thursday. “This is a relationship that we have been concerned about throughout – mostly because we’re concerned about China providing support to Russia’s illegal and unnecessary war in Ukraine,” he stated.

Both Moscow and Beijing have rejected Western allegations that Beijing has been supplying Russia with dual-use components that can be utilized to produce weapons for the Ukraine conflict.

Austin said the flight on Wednesday was “not a surprise,” adding that Moscow and Beijing had likely planned it for some time.

The aircraft came only within about 200 miles (320km) of the US coast and did not enter either US or Canadian airspace, according to the Pentagon chief.

The Russian Defense Ministry reported on Thursday that the crews “worked out issues of interaction at all stages of air patrol in the new area of joint operations.” It stressed that the patrols, which lasted over five hours, were conducted in accordance with international law.

Chinese Defense Ministry spokesperson Zhang Xiaogang told reporters that the flight was the eighth “joint air strategic patrol” carried out by the two nations since 2019. The exercise was “not directed at any third party” and is “unrelated to the current international and regional situation,” it said.

Russia often conducts flights near US airspace and also monitors US and NATO flights near its own airspace too, and has sent its jets to escort American fighters and bombers away from its borders on numerous occasions in recent years.

July 27, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

UK Plans to Build New Missiles to Target Russia Linked to Pentagon’s Mad Conventional Strike Scheme

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 26.07.2024

Sources told UK media this week that Britain has partnered up with Germany to develop and deploy a new intermediate-range missile designed to target Russia’s nuclear arsenal. Veteran Russian military observer Alexei Leonkov says the plan is inextricably linked to the Pentagon’s highly dangerous Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) initiative.

UK Defense Secretary John Healey spoke to his German counterpart in Berlin on Wednesday about a plan to jointly develop a new strategic missile with a 3,200 km range, The Times reported on Thursday, citing sources said to be familiar with the idea.

Once developed and fielded, the new missiles would be deployed in Germany, according to the publication, replacing the American ground-based long-range fires that Washington recently announced would be stationed in the Central European country beginning in 2026.

Both the American missiles and the proposed new British-German missile would have been prohibited under the 1988 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which banned the development, production and deployment of ground-based missiles in the 500-5,500 km range. Washington violated the treaty for years, according to Moscow, and unilaterally scrapped the agreement in 2019 and immediately began testing of new long-range weapons after falsely accusing Russia of possessing a ground-based missile system with a range beyond 500 km.

One of The Times’ sources said the US weapons expected to deploy in Europe in two years’ time are meant to “bridge” a gap in European NATO allies’ own capabilities. The source did not clarify what motivated the US to ask its allies to create an entirely new missile instead buying or agreeing to permanently field existing American ones.

A joint declaration from Healey’s talks with his German counterpart, Boris Pistorius, mentioned a commitment to “undertake a long-term, comprehensive cooperation in the field of long-range capabilities” to provide “deep precision strike” potential. The details are reportedly still being worked out, with no additional information made available, besides the new missile’s expected role as a conventional fire designed to destroy enemy tactical nuclear delivery systems.

The Storm Shadow is currently the furthest-reaching conventional missile in Britain’s arsenal. It has a range of about 240 km, and has been deployed extensively by Ukraine in the NATO-Russia proxy war. The Taurus KEPD 350 is Germany’s longest-range missile system, and has a range of up to 500 km. Berlin has refused to send the air-launched weapon to Ukraine, expressing concerns that doing so would make Germany a “party to the war” because German troops would be on the ground training Ukrainians to use the missiles.

A British Defense Ministry spokesperson told The Times that the deepening UK-German defense relationship is currently “in early stages” and that work on “any new programs” has “not yet commenced.”

Europe Joins US’s Dangerous Conventional Prompt Strike Scheme

“The deployment of these missiles, both American and British, is connected to two things,” Alexei Leonkov, editor of Russia’s Arsenal of the Fatherland military affairs and technology magazine, told Sputnik, commenting on The Times piece.

“The first is the global concept, the strategy under which NATO has been restructuring toward since 2002, which is the Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) concept, whose essence centers around the need to destroy the nuclear potentials of an adversary like Russia or China,” Leonkov said.

Thought up by the Bush administration, CPS envisions the mass deployment of thousands of conventional long-range missiles fired simultaneously in a massive surprise attack to destroy as much of an enemy’s strategic arsenal as possible, decapitate its leadership, and destroy remaining fired nuclear missiles using missile defenses.

The primary danger of the idea stems from the concern that it will make the prospect of a ‘limited’ nuclear war seem more palatable for Pentagon planners, and hence increasing the temptation to launch aggression.

The second reason for the British-German plan to develop a new missile centers around the fact that the Americans “are running late, or perhaps have lost the technologies used to create intercontinental missiles with a range beyond that of the Minuteman-3,” Leonkov argues.

“Why do the Americans want to switch up some of their missiles for European ones? I think that most likely, the missiles they have developed may not have proven entirely successful. Hence they’ve decided to attract a European consortium led by the UK.”

On top of that, as Washington’s strategic competition with China in the Asia-Pacific heats up, the number of missiles available for deployment in Europe may be limited, Leonkov believes.

The defense observer can’t rule out that the new British-German missile project may be focused on the creation of a maneuverable hypersonic vehicle, with Britain’s BAE Systems already working on a number of projects in this direction, and cooperating with US defense companies on their hypersonic projects.

In fact, these new European weapons may be the mystery “developmental hypersonic weapons” that the White House mentioned in its press statement earlier this month when it announced the deployment of new long-range strike systems to Germany from 2026 onward, Leonkov said.

Leonkov is confident that these new missiles’ mission will be to overwhelm Russian air and missile defense capabilities, and that if they are developed and fielded, Europe will become the first priority for a Russian strategic attack.

Recalling the European NATO missile threat which faced Moscow in the 1980s, Leonkov characterized the alliance’s present plans as an attempt to give rise to a Cold War 2.0, only this time far more dangerous.

“Russia today is not in a position where it has a vast security belt in the form of the Warsaw Pact countries that it did during the Cold War. Therefore, decisions will need to be changed radically. It’s clear that it will be necessary to strengthen the country’s anti-missile and anti-aircraft defense, but also take steps so that these missiles never appear on the European continent in the first place, while there is still an opportunity to do so,” the observer stressed.

Specifically, Russia will need to make clear in its nuclear doctrine that the deployment of such missiles in Europe will pose a direct threat, and give itself the right to launch a preemptive strike to eliminate this threat, Leonkov suggested.

Under its existing nuclear doctrine, Russia reserves itself the right to use nuclear weapons only in retaliation to an enemy attack using nuclear arms or other weapons of mass destruction, or in the event of conventional aggression so severe that it puts the existence of the Russian state in jeopardy. In June, President Putin hinted that Russia might revise its nuclear doctrine in response to existing threats.

What the US needs more than anything is “a quick solution that would close the issue for a while,” Leonkov said, referring to the constraints Washington will face in deploying vast numbers of long-range strike systems both to Europe and Asia. Russia’s main goal at this stage will be to “act proactively” to respond to this new threat, the analyst concluded.

July 26, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

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