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Will the US-Japan military alliance make any difference?

By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – 15.07.2024

The ongoing upgrades to the US-Japan military cooperation signals new regional developments. In reality, however, this upgrade is a continuation of the US strategy in the Pacific to build military outposts so that China can be deterred and tackled. On the one hand, it is militarizing Japan. On the other hand, the sale of weapons keeps bringing money to the US military-industrial complex. Ultimately, this alliance will do little to serve the purpose of ‘containing’ China. Most of the equipment the US is providing is outdated, basically getting rid of the scrap. The modern equipment, on the other hand, is unreliable. Still, Trump’s arrival in the White House could change the dynamics of military cooperation, making things worse.

The Upgrades:

Following the announcements made during the Biden-Kishida summit in April regarding big upgrades to the US-Japan alliance, the upgrade has finally arrived. On the 3rd of July, the Pentagon announced that the US was going to upgrade “tactical aircraft laydown across multiple military installations in Japan”. This so-called “modernization plan” is worth US$ 10 billion that will “bolster regional deterrence, and strengthen peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region”. According to the announcement, the US will replace 48 F-15C/D with 36 F-15EX fighters at Kadena Air Base. The US Air Force will also replace 36 F-16 aircraft with 48 F-35A aircraft at Misawa Air Base. Overall, the plan to “station the Joint Force’s most advanced tactical aircraft in Japan demonstrates the ironclad U.S. commitment to the defence of Japan and both countries’ shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific region”. In addition to these new deployments, NATO is also in the middle of releasing its new policy documents outlining its new lines of cooperation with countries like Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea. There seems to be momentum, but it will soon run into problems that it may not be able to recover from.

Can US-Japan-NATO Counter China?

While the F-15EX seems like a significant upgrade from the outdated F-15C/Ds, they are still no match against China’s growing fleet of stealth fighter jets. It means that were Japan to use these fighters in an offensive against China, they would prove useless since they lack stealth features and would be unable to penetrate a heavily guarded airspace.

While the deployment of F-35 jets does mark a significant upgrade, there are serious questions about its operational and logistic utility, compromising its ability to tackle China’s J-20s. In 2023, according to one estimate, China produced 100 J-20. If China can maintain the same rate, it will have 1,000 J-20s by 2035. The US has less than F-22s, and its F-35 programme continues to run into problems.

The 2023 Annual Report by the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation made some startling observations, saying,

“The F-35 program development cycle continues to experience delays due to immature and deficient Block 4 mission systems software and avionics stability problems with the new Technology Refresh 3 (TR-3) hardware going into Lot 15 production aircraft. As a result, deliveries of production Lot 15 aircraft in the TR-3 configuration are on hold until more testing can be completed and the avionics issues resolved. Additionally, these delays prevented the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) from adequately planning and programming for hardware modifications for OT of the upgraded hardware configuration”.

As a result of these delays and difficulties, only 32 out of 205 baseline DT flights were conducted. The US is now stationing the F-35s in Japan, which basically relies on the assumption that these delays will ultimately be resolved and that Washington will not have to move these F-35s to a different location to meet the recurring shortages. But the reality is that, as the report concludes, “The operational suitability of the F-35 fleet remains below Service expectations and requirements”, which means that, according to the report, out of 628 aircraft produced until now, a majority of them remain “unavailable” for active service throughout most of the year.  In fact, 2023 had fewer available aircraft than 2022. What this ‘upgrade’ will do to Japan’s security is, therefore, not hard to imagine. In the end, other than creating a false sense of security, it might not add any value to Japan’s offensive and defensive capabilities, compromising the politics of ‘China containment’.

The Trump Factor

Former US President Donald Trump’s return to the White House next year is already making Washington’s European allies extremely uneasy. Whereas Trump has thus far signalled that his administration will ideally continue to follow the Biden administration’s policy towards Japan and China, Trump has also assured his voters of the continuation of his “America First” and “Make America Great Again” policies, which also involve, among other things, military disengagements.

Therefore, the existing rhetoric of reassurance notwithstanding, Trump’s politics and/or his geopolitical vision has not seen any change in the recent past. Reports in the US media indicate that “a second Trump administration is likely to be far more disruptive for Asia than the first one was”. What it implies is that, with Trump forcing the US military footprint to reduce worldwide, countries like Japan will need to find ways to become self-reliant. So, instead of depending upon the actual supply and availability of otherwise “unavailable” fifth-generation jets, Tokyo will need to develop an alternative, more reliable strategy – a strategy that should not exclude the possibility of dialogue with China to sort out any existing issues without any external interference.

In fact, since Trump is likely to target China and push the US away from Japan’s military build-up, he is likely to antagonise both states. There is, therefore, an incentive for both Asian giants to collaborate and find peace.

Salman Rafi Sheikh is a research analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs.

July 15, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Russia could challenge NATO’s historical air dominance – media

By Ahmed Adel | July 15, 2024

Business Insider reported that NATO had never faced an adversary of Russia’s calibre after World War II, and it would have been difficult for the alliance to establish air superiority over Russian forces. The warning comes as experts have explained the sombre reality that the F-16 fighter jets, a key aircraft in many NATO air force fleets, provided to Kiev will not be a “magic bullet” that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his Western allies expect them to be.

“Russia could challenge NATO’s historical air dominance,” reported the media on July 13 after explaining that this is a change from the scenario that emerged after the Cold War when the West had a clear advantage. “Russia would be a very different opponent. It has the territory and industry to build and field massive and sophisticated air defenses that an opponent may struggle to destroy.”

“The US and its allies, even with fleets of fifth-generation stealth fighter jets, likely would find it difficult to establish the same level of air dominance they’ve largely had since the end of World War II,” the New York-based outlet said.

According to experts cited by the portal, Western aviation has never had the experience of combating air defence systems at a level similar to that of Russia’s. During the conflict in Ukraine, the Russian military proved that it could establish extremely difficult air defence areas for the enemy with powerful radars, electronic warfare systems and missiles.

“The Russians could attempt a surprising and impactful opening attack,” the article warned. “For example, the Russians could target vulnerabilities like satellites to try to disrupt the space-based communications and navigation NATO airpower depends upon.”

The worry that Russia could establish air superiority over NATO, particularly over the bloc’s 30 European members, became a more serious consideration after Russian forces methodically obliterated Ukraine’s air force. Russia so impressively dismantled the Ukrainian air force that the Kiev regime is desperately seeking F-16 fighter jets from Western allies to replenish its fleet, even though experts are saying that the aircraft is now obsolete and unlikely to survive the conflict.

“As soon as the Ukrainians encountered Russian-controlled air space, the F-16’s value would diminish markedly, as would its likelihood of survival,” Harrison Kass wrote for the National Interest. “In a conflict with a great power, China for example, the F-16 would remain on the backbench.”

This is a telling revelation considering the US still uses over 900 F-16s, NATO members, including Turkey, Greece, Poland, and Romania, use hundreds more, as well as US non-NATO allies Israel, Taiwan and South Korea. In effect, the F-16 would be rendered almost useless against Russia given that the Eastern European country’s military is ranked second, one above China, according to the 2024 PowerIndex.

Kass warns Kiev that the good performance of the F-16 fighter jets in Iraq and Afghanistan does not say anything about their capabilities against Russian air defences.

After stressing that “the F-16 fighting falcon era is coming to a rapid end,” Kass concludes that the US-made fighter jet “will not offer a magic bullet for Zelensky” and will merely “buy a little more time.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that the F-16s supplied to Kiev will be destroyed just like other Western military equipment. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also warned that their appearance in Ukraine will not change anything on the front and that they will be destroyed in the same way as other types of weapons.

Nonetheless, in 2023, several NATO states agreed to supply the Ukrainian armed forces with the fighter jets and launched training programs for Ukrainian pilots. On July 10, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the US and its allies are “underway” in sending the promised F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.

As Europe and the US are not interested in a viable, pragmatic, and lasting peace agreement in Ukraine which recognises Russian interests in the region and establishes a lasting solution, they are actively prolonging the fighting despite not only the humanitarian consequences but even the weakening of their own military. Whilst NATO members are distracted with training Ukrainian pilots to use fighter jets that are effectively obsolete in any combat with a great power, Russia, as Business Insider has acknowledged, has successfully challenged the air dominance NATO largely enjoyed since the start of the Cold War despite the introduction of fifth-generation fighter jets.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

July 15, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Possible consequences and prospects of Vladimir Putin’s visit to DPRK

By Konstantin Asmolov – New Eastern Outlook – 12.07.2024 

The consequences of the visit of the Russian leader to North Korea and the documents signed there are so significant that they can propel the trend of global turbulence. How have Seoul, Beijing and Washington reacted to such a rapprochement between Moscow and Pyongyang and what will be Moscow’s response to the steps taken by Seoul and its allies?

Seoul’s response 

Until a certain point, Seoul was ‘the friendliest of the unfriendly countries’ – the Russian president recently noted in a positive way. As Vladimir Putin said on June 5, 2024, within the framework of the International Economic Forum in St Petersburg, “Russia highly appreciates the refusal of ROK to directly supply lethal weapons to Ukraine”.

However, such a demonstrative rapprochement between Pyongyang and Moscow cannot be ignored by Seoul, especially since the content of the Treaty (which contains a military component along the lines of the Soviet-North Korean treaty of 1961) has turned out to match the worst expectations of South Korean analysts.

Even before the visit, South Korean diplomats hinted to the author that Seoul would definitely respond to such a level of cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang, at least for domestic political and reputation reasons. This response would most likely entail boosting Seoul-NATO cooperation to a similar level. The United States, along with its allies and systemic right-wing politicians, are putting pressure on President Yoon Suk Yeol to take a more anti-Russian stance, especially on the Ukrainian track; Seoul is constantly being convinced that since Pyongyang has been ‘proven’ to be aiding Russia, South Korea has the right to provide similar support to Ukraine, despite all possible risks of retaliatory measures and a significant cooling of relations with Moscow.

In a statement on June 20, 2024, former Ambassador to Russia and current National Security Adviser to the President Chang Ho-jin noted: “Four ships, five organisations and eight individuals from third countries, as well as Russian and North Korean organisations involved in the supply of weapons and oil transshipment between Russia and North Korea, are on the list of independent sanctions… We have also included 243 new items to the list of sanctioned goods exported to Russia, bringing the total number to 1,402 items…We plan on reconsidering the issue of military support for Ukraine, as the government has so far maintained the position that it will not supply lethal weapons to this country”.

Chang’s statement, on the other hand, could not but evoke a threatening reply from Moscow. Vladimir Putin almost immediately declared that the supply of lethal weapons to Ukraine would be a “very big mistake” and that Moscow would in this case make “the appropriate decisions, which the current leadership of South Korea will most likely not appreciate”. However, the Russian president expressed hope that such a thing would not happen.

There was also a natural exchange of reprimands. On June 21, 2024, First Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of ROK Kim Hong Kyung summoned Russian Ambassador Georgy Zinoviev to convey Seoul’s official position on the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement between Russia and DPRK from June 19.  The vice minister called on Russia to “immediately cease military cooperation with North Korea and comply with UN Security Council resolutions”. He made it clear that ROK, along with the international community, will “resolutely resist any actions that threaten its security”.

Zinoviev said that cooperation between Russia and DPRK is not directed against third countries, complies with the principles and norms of international law and is aimed at strengthening peace and stability on the Korean peninsula. Russia is ready to continue to make political and diplomatic efforts to form an architecture of long-term peace and stability based on the principle of indivisible security”, the ambassador stressed.

Meanwhile Seoul slowly began to backtrack. On June 23, 2024, in a speech on the KBS channels, Chang Ho-jin made it clear that the question of whether South Korea will supply lethal weapons to Ukraine will depend on Russia; if it starts sending high-precision modern weapons to North Korea, then nothing will stop South Korea from helping Ukraine. Among the options under consideration are 155 mm artillery shells and air defence systems.

In essence, the parties formally voiced to each other the long-known, informal red lines: South Korea is not to be engaged in direct supplies of weapons and military equipment to Ukraine and Russia is not to be engaged in the development of the North Korean military potential. It is important for Seoul to prevent the supply of dangerous modern weapons and technologies to the North, and North Korean shells (which are allegedly provided to the Special Military Operation) are a nuisance, but not yet a disaster.

It is worth remembering that, despite his high position, Chang still does not have the right to speak on behalf of the state unlike the president, the prime minister and the foreign minister. If such statements were to come from them as well, then it would indeed be a cause for concern. For now, though, one should wait and see, considering how, on the eve of his visit to the United States, Yoon Suk Yeol stated that the Republic of Korea could start supplying weapons to Ukraine if the Russian Armed Forces were to commit an atrocity.

Thus, the point of no return in relations between Moscow and Seoul has not yet been passed, but we are close. The author hopes for the best, as Moscow and Seoul understand that when crossing the ‘red’ line, Russia will also have to take action in response and South Korea may lose its status as ‘the friendliest of the unfriendly’.

China’s position 

The reaction to the visit by the Chinese media and government agencies was between neutral and positive; they did [not] provide any statements of judgement and simply noted that this was an important and serious event. The Chinese Foreign Ministry called the DPRK’s desire to develop relations with Russia normal, and the Global Times noted that this cooperation could perhaps even make the United States afraid.

Western media actively wrote that China was not happy with the rapprochement between Russia and the DPRK that Putin’s visit to North Korea and Vietnam was actually anti-Chinese in nature and that having a parallel 2+2 dialogue shows China’s desire to be friends with Seoul, showing its tough stance to Pyongyang.

This is not exactly true. Firstly, coordination between Moscow and Beijing on the Korean issue has always been and is very close. A look at the joint statements on the Korean issue made during Putin’s visit to China is enough to prove this. This means that the essence of Moscow and Pyongyang’s agreements with Beijing was probably discussed in advance.

Secondly, on June 18 negotiations did indeed take place in Seoul. They were attended by senior officials from the foreign and defence ministries of ROK and China in a 2+2 format.

Before the start of the talks, the official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea, Lim Soo-suk, believed that “issues of cooperation between Russia and North Korea will be discussed, since dialogue is taking place simultaneously with the scheduled visit of the Russian president to North Korea”. Professor of the Hankuk University of Foreign Affairs Kang Jung-young said that “having this dialogue is in itself is a clear signal to North Korea that China will not support Pyongyang’s attempts to create a trilateral bloc with Beijing and Moscow”.

The Korean approach to the 2+2 format is as follows: representatives of Seoul expressed deep concern to their Chinese colleagues about the visit of the Russian president to DPRK and the deepening of ties between Moscow and Pyongyang amid rising tensions on the Korean peninsula. They stressed that the Russian leader’s visit to North Korea should not undermine peace and stability in the region or lead to the strengthening of military cooperation between the two countries. Additionally, ROK called on China to play a constructive role in ensuring peace, stability and security on the Korean peninsula, emphasising that the deepening of Russian-North Korean military cooperation and its consequences run in contradiction to Beijing’s interests. In turn, China confirmed its unchanged position on the Korean peninsula, expressing its readiness to take an active part in solving the problems of the region.

A ‘bloc’ as a limiting factor 

Almost immediately after the signing of the comprehensive strategic partnership agreement between the Russian Federation and North Korea, the Russian president noted that there were no fundamentally new points in it and that the document was similar to the 1961 treaty, including Article 4 on ‘automatic military intervention’. According to Putin, the provisions of the new Agreement stipulate that military assistance is provided only in case of aggression, and therefore ROK has nothing to worry about, since there are no known plans of the South to attack the North. The Russian president also expressed the opinion that the Agreement would to some extent limit the threat of the crisis on the Korean peninsula entering a ‘hot phase’.

The author supposes that the cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang within the framework of a possible military bloc reduces the likelihood of conflict on the Korean peninsula rather than increases it. The fact that the opposing sides are two serious military blocs reduces the likelihood of an escalation of the conflict, as it could too easily escalate to become nuclear, and neither Moscow nor Pyongyang are suicidal.

One more detail: on the one hand, article 4 of the Agreement is harsher than article 5 of the NATO treaty. On the other, it clearly indicates that a state of war is required for comprehensive assistance, and if we recall the 1961 treaty, then it is worth paying attention to the events of 1968 when Moscow clarified to Pyongyang in which situations military assistance would be cancelled.

We should likely expect a confrontation similar to the Cold War. There will be an arms race, muscles will be flexed, loud statements and minor incidents will take place, but the parties are well aware of the red lines and do not intend to cross them. Being prepared for war, including the development of preemptive strike plans as a way of self-defence in a critical situation, is not the same as the desire to initiate a conflict.

The fate of UNSC sanctions 

The demonstrative liquidation of UN Security Council sanctions, which was expected in the West, has still not taken place. Both Putin’s article and the additional decree emphasise cooperation in the fields of education, healthcare and science and maintain that the unjust sanctions should be lifted.

For now, though, Moscow says it will comply with the sanctions it previously voted for.

It is likely that the lifting of sanctions may occur following the next round of escalation because regardless of whether there were actually arms deals or not, the West will still blame Moscow and Pyongyang for colluding and take retaliatory measures.

The appearance of a North Korean labour force in Russia is a sign that a de jure or de facto decision to ignore a part of the sanctions has been made. Price, quality, safety and keeping a low profile are the strengths of North Korean builders, and talks of their employment have been going on for a long time.

Summa summarum, there is a lot of uncertainty in the future and the situation is similar to that described in the book ‘The Guns of August’ by Barbara Tuchman: nobody wanted war, so war was inevitable. However, it cannot be said that the visit of the President of the Russian Federation to the DPRK has significantly aggravated the situation.

Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, Leading Research Fellow at the Korean Studies Center of the Institute of China and Contemporary Asia of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

July 12, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Kremlin comments on Türkiye’s SCO bid

Türkiye’s obligations to the US-led military bloc are not consistent with the Eurasian organization’s values, Moscow has said.

RT | July 12, 2024

Türkiye’s bid to become a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is not compatible with its membership in NATO, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.

Last week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attended a summit of the Eurasian mutual defense group, in which his nation has observer status. While returning home from Kazakhstan, he told journalists that Ankara wants to “further develop” ties with the SCO and its founding members Russia and China. During the NATO leaders’ summit in the US this week, he said Türkiye wants to join the SCO as a permanent member.

Asked by journalists when Turkish accession could be expected, Peskov said there was a problem with such a proposal.

“There are certain contradictions between Turkish commitments and [its] position on fundamental issues as a NATO member and the worldview formulated in the founding documents of the SCO,” he explained.

The expansion of the SCO is of interest to many nations and remains on its agenda, but there is no specific timeline for accepting new members, he added. Commenting later during a press call on bilateral relations with Türkiye, Peskov said Russia was “open for attempts to reach agreements based on a certain worldview.”

Moscow perceives NATO as a hostile, aggressive military organization, which serves US geopolitical interests and is currently conducting a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.

Despite being a NATO member state, Türkiye has maintained a neutral stance on the Ukraine conflict, refusing to impose economic sanctions on Russia and serving as an intermediary between Moscow and Kiev on several occasions. Ankara helped to mediate a nascent peace deal in the early months of the hostilities, which Kiev eventually ditched in favor of continued fighting. The Russian government believes that the US and its allies, particularly the UK, forced Ukraine to reject the proposal.

The SCO was founded in 2001 and currently has ten full members: Russia, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Belarus. Kazakhstan holds the rotating presidency this year and hosted the leaders of member states on July 3 and 4 in Astana.

One of the key pledges to which SCO members subscribe is not to seek the improvement of their own national security at the expense of the national security of other parties. NATO policy does exactly that, according to its critics, including Russia.

July 12, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Pro-Pentagon Media Calls on DoD to Step Up Anti-Houthi Info War Amid Blows to US Navy’s Reputation

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 11.07.2024

The Houthis resumed their attacks on suspected Israel and US-affiliated merchant ships Tuesday after a ten-day pause. Armed with mostly older missile designs and cheap drones and possessing no blue water navy to speak of, the militants have managed to effectively shut down the Red Sea to Western interests, humiliating the Pentagon in the process.

The US Navy’s inability to lift the Houthis’ self-imposed partial blockade of the Red and Arabian Seas or to meaningfully degrade the militia’s missile and drone capabilities in six months of air and missile strikes has given rise to embarrassing questions from allies and adversaries alike about whether the US military is a mere “paper tiger,” and not the “all powerful,” global and “omnipotent force” it’s cracked up to be.

In testimony by senior Pentagon officials on the state of America’s air and missile defenses earlier this year, Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces chairman Angus King complained that the US has proved not only unable to defend against peer competitors like Russia and China, but ineffective against smaller adversaries, including Iran and the Houthis, as well.

His concerns were echoed by media reports that the US has already spent over a billion dollars fighting the Houthis, with the USS Eisenhower supercarrier’s Super Hornet jets racking up tens of thousands of flight hours, and US warships firing hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of interceptor missiles to target the militia’s simple missiles, UAVs and maritime drones.

Amid the Houthis’ successes in humbling the American goliath, panicky voices have emerged in Washington and US military-affiliated media calling for something to be done to stop the Yemeni militia’s humiliation of the US Empire in the Middle East from spreading online.

The “Navy should hit back harder against Houthi online disinformation,” Max Lesser, a senior analyst with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a DC neoconservative think tank, wrote in an op-ed that appeared in the Navy Times on Wednesday.

“While the US military and allies regularly hit back with airstrikes against Houthi missile launchers and other assets in Yemen, the Pentagon is less prepared to defend against the online lies and disinformation that the Houthis are spreading,” Lesser complained.

The think tank analyst pointed to a series of social media posts from late May shared by “Houthi supporters” of digitally altered images and videos of damage purportedly done to the USS Eisenhower in one of the militia’s attempts to retaliate to US-UK strikes into Yemen.

The manipulated images apparently proved prolific enough for the carrier’s captain, Captain Christopher Hill, to invite journalists to inspect the warship’s flight deck to show it had not in fact suffered any damage in Houthi attacks.

Lesser suggests that the “deluge of deceptively labeled images” spread by “pro-Houthi accounts” has generally not been sufficiently challenged or debunked by the Pentagon, despite the operation of a DoD Joint Maritime Information Center stood up specifically to report on the situation in the Red Sea region. The analyst urged the military to include any “Houthi disinformation” it finds into its weekly updates, noting that for now, “debunking” the false images is falling to lone “independent” OSINT analysts.

“The challenge is not limited to the Red Sea or the Middle East,” Lesser stressed. “Military forces in every command should have public affairs and open-source intelligence personnel working together to debunk false and exaggerated claims of enemy success on the battlefield.”

Lesser’s calls for the US to step up its game in online disinformation warfare are the latest in a long-running effort by Western officials, media and corporations to rein in the free-flow of information, whether through outright broad brush censorship like the scrubbing of entire websites, comments and social media posts, or ‘softer’ means, like private ‘fact checking’ organizations set up explicitly and exclusively to challenge anti-establishment narratives.

Given the US military’s proven track record of covering up information the Pentagon finds inconvenient, there’s no guarantee that any DoD-led campaign to combat Houthi “disinformation” online won’t result in the creation of new falsehoods spread by the Defense Department.

July 11, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | | Leave a comment

Second NATO country publicly opposes Ukrainian membership

RT | July 11, 2024

Ukraine joining NATO would guarantee a third world war, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has said, publicly expressing opposition to the idea.

Fico released a short video message on Thursday while the leaders of NATO countries were meeting in Washington. The draft of the annual summit’s final communique reportedly includes references to Ukraine’s “irreversible path” towards joining the US-led bloc.

“I understand Ukraine’s wishes,” Fico said in the video. “But its membership in NATO guarantees World War Three.”

“Although to be fair, we are not too far from it even without Ukraine’s membership, seeing as how some advanced democracies are stoking the pot,” he added.

Slovakia’s representatives in Washington have been instructed to insist on two conditions for Ukrainian membership, Fico said. Kiev must meet every condition set by the bloc, and every member state has to give its blessing.

“However, as I’ve said many times, Smer and its lawmakers in the National Assembly of Slovakia will not agree to Ukraine’s membership in NATO,” he said, in reference to his ruling party.

Fico campaigned last year on a platform of opposing Ukrainian membership in NATO and further Slovak military support to Kiev. He won the election in a landslide.

In mid-May, a liberal activist reportedly upset with Bratislava’s new policy shot Fico several times and almost killed him. The prime minister underwent a series of surgeries and spent weeks recovering from the assassination attempt, returning to work in person just last week.

On Wednesday, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told reporters in Washington that Ukraine’s membership in the bloc “is clearly out of the question,” as it would “foreshadow direct conflict between Russia and NATO.”

The US-led bloc is expected to pledge at least €40 billion ($43.3 billion) in military aid to Ukraine over the next year and endorse its “full Euro-Atlantic integration,” but an invitation to NATO would only be extended “when allies agree and conditions are met,” according to a draft seen by Reuters. The same language was used at last year’s summit in Lithuania.

July 11, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

NATO Declaration Is Stark Neoconservative Recommitment to US Hegemony – Sachs

Sputnik – 11.07.2024

WASHINGTON – NATO’s latest joint declaration serves as a stark neoconservative recommitment to US hegemony, Jeffrey Sachs, a world-renowned economist and President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, told Sputnik.

“The NATO Declaration is a stark neoconservative recommitment to US hegemony. It calls for NATO to back the ‘rules-based order,’ which is actually the US-based order that is often directly contrary to the UN Charter,” Sachs said.

On Wednesday, NATO released a joint Washington Summit Declaration, which outlines the alliance’s efforts to further isolate Russia, bolster the alliance’s security on its eastern flank, increase security assistance for Ukraine, and claim Ukraine is on an “irreversible path” into NATO, among other initiatives.

“It describes NATO as a defensive force despite the fact that NATO is repeatedly engaged in offensive regime-change operations, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Serbia, Libya, Ukraine, and others,” Sachs said.

Sachs explains that NATO’s declaration also restates Article 10 of the Washington Treaty, which claims that Russia has no input if NATO expands to surround Russia.

Moreover, Sachs said NATO’s joint statement describes its commitment to advanced biotechnologies, which raises concerns of biowarfare.

Sachs also pointed out that the declaration shows NATO’s intention to continue to deploy anti-ballistic missiles throughout Europe as it’s previously done in Poland, Romania, and Turkiye, which has directly destabilized the nuclear arms control architecture ever since the United States unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002.

The White House announced earlier that the United States will begin episodic deployments of the long-range fires capabilities of its Multi-Domain Task Force in Germany in 2026.

Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said US plans to deploy intermediate- and shorter-range missiles to Germany pose a direct threat to international security and increase the risks of a missile arms race.

July 11, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

US plan to deploy missiles in Germany a ‘direct threat’ – Moscow

RT | July 11, 2024

US plans to deploy long-range missiles in Europe are a threat to global security and could pave the way for an escalation of already tense relations between Moscow and NATO, Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov has said.

On Wednesday, the US and Germany issued a joint statement that America “will begin episodic deployments of the long-range fires capabilities of its Multi-Domain Task Force in Germany in 2026, as part of planning for enduring stationing of these capabilities in the future.”

Washington also said that the systems will include SM-6 and Tomahawk missiles with ranges of up to 460km and 2,400km, respectively, as well as developmental hypersonic weapons. Those assets have a “significantly longer range than current land-based fires in Europe,” the statement added.

In a post on Telegram on Thursday, Antonov denounced the move as “a serious mistake by Washington.” “Such extremely destabilizing steps are a direct threat to international security and strategic stability,” he said.

The envoy stressed that the planned deployment “increases the risks of a missile arms race,” adding that it could unleash “uncontrolled escalation amid dangerously soaring Russia-NATO tensions.”

Antonov also said that Russia has always sought to reduce the risks posed by disagreements over missile capabilities. “Instead of the desire for peace that Russia has demonstrated many times, the Americans have embarked on the dangerous path of militarism,” according to the ambassador.

He emphasized that Russia’s tolerance for encroachments on its security is “not unlimited.” “Doesn’t Germany understand that the emergence of American missile assets on German soil will lead to these facilities ending up in Russian crosshairs? This is not saber-rattling, it is the simple logic of a normal person,” Antonov explained.

He went on to blast the US for not thinking about how to minimize the fallout from the collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF). Signed in 1987 at the end of the Cold War, it barred Moscow and Washington from possessing many types of nuclear and conventional missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500km.

The US unilaterally withdrew from the treaty in 2019, citing alleged Russian non-compliance, a charge denied in Moscow. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov suggested earlier this week that the US pulled out of the agreement to create formerly banned missile systems to put pressure on China.

At the same time, Russia has said that it intends to keep abiding by the INF’s terms, but warned that it could reverse that policy if Washington starts deploying missiles covered by the treaty in any region of the world.

July 11, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

US to deploy long-range weapons in Germany

RT | July 10, 2024

The US will station long-range missiles in Germany from 2026 onwards, the governments of both countries have announced. These weapons, including the SM-6 and Tomahawk systems, were banned on the continent until Washington tore up a landmark Cold War-era treaty in 2019.

According to a joint statement published by the White House, the US will “begin episodic deployments of the long-range fires capabilities of its Multi-Domain Task Force in Germany in 2026, as part of planning for enduring stationing of these capabilities in the future.”

The statement was released following talks between American and German officials at NATO’s annual summit in Washington on Wednesday.

The weapons systems deployed to Germany will include the SM-6 anti-air missile, which has a range of up to 460km (290 miles), and the Tomahawk cruise missile, which can reportedly strike targets more than 2,500km away.

The White House said that “developmental hypersonic weapons” will also be stationed in Germany, and will have a “significantly longer range than current land-based fires in Europe.”

The US has yet to successfully field a hypersonic weapon, and has canceled every hypersonic project since its first successful test in 2017.

Land-launched missiles with a range between 500km and 5,500km were banned on European soil under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. Along with the START-I and START-II agreements, the INF treaty helped defuse nuclear tensions in Europe after the West and the USSR came perilously close to nuclear war during NATO’s Able Archer military exercise in 1983.

The US pulled out of the INF treaty in 2019, with the State Department claiming that some of Russia’s cruise missiles had breached the agreement. Moscow denied this, and Russian President Vladimir Putin warned then-US President Donald Trump that the demise of the treaty would “have the gravest consequences.”

Russia continued to abide by the treaty and imposed a moratorium on the development of missiles that it prohibited. However, Putin announced earlier this month that the Russian defense industry would resume development of such armaments, citing the “hostile actions” of the US.

“We now know that the US is not only producing these missile systems, but has also brought them to Europe, Denmark, to use in exercises. Not long ago, it was reported that they were in the Philippines,” Putin explained at the time.

US and Danish forces trained with SM-6 missiles last September, while the Pentagon deployed its Typhon Weapon System – which can fire both SM-6 and Tomahawk missiles – to the Philippines in April.

July 11, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

The UK election results hide a truth Labour won’t want you to hear

By Graham Hryce | RT | July 10, 2024

Many political commentators in the UK have failed to grasp the true import of the Labour Party’s electoral victory last week.

Some pundits see the party’s record majority as confirmation that politics in Britain has shifted back to the center – in contrast to the shift to the radical right that has characterized politics in most European countries in recent years.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Labour’s primary vote – 9.7 million but still a lowish 33.8% – increased only marginally, despite the complete collapse of the Conservative vote.

The most important aspect of last week’s election was the transfer of thousands of votes from the Conservative Party to Nigel Farage’s populist Reform Party – particularly in those “red wall” constituencies that Boris Johnson had single handedly captured from Labour at the 2019 election.

Reform received some 4 million votes – 14% of the total votes cast. The UK electoral system meant, however, that Reform only won five seats – including, most importantly, Farage himself.

This significant voting shift did, however, unseat more than 200 Tory MPs, including a former prime minister and a number of cabinet members, and ensured the election of Labour candidates in droves. This does not, however, constitute a “shift to the center.”

What actually occurred last week was predicted, prior to the election, by some conservative commentators who had become completely disenchanted with the Conservative Party, and had cast their lot in with Reform.

Matt Goodwin, for example, urged voters to engage in an act of “creative destruction” by voting for Reform, knowing full well that this would result in a landslide Labour victory.

Goodwin, in effect, urged voters to destroy a Conservative Party that, in his view, had long ago ceased to stand for genuine Conservative values – so as to clear the political landscape for a Reform victory at the 2029 election.

From this perspective, Starmer’s victory is simply a necessary political prelude to the creation of a viable British populist party that will be capable of governing in its own right in the next few years.

Whatever the prospects of this happening may be, such a perspective correctly predicted the imminent demise of the Rishi Sunak-led Conservative Party, and reflected what has actually been happening in UK politics for the past decade.

Other commentators – including Starmer propagandists and, curiously enough, some from the conservative right like Peter Hitchens – see Starmer’s win as a victory for “the most radical left-wing party in UK history.” Such a view could not be more mistaken.

There is nothing at all “left-wing” – in the traditional sense of the term – about Keir Starmer or the Labour Party that he has refashioned in his own image since its disastrous election loss in 2019.

Starmer has spent the past five years ruthlessly purging the Labour Party of the last remnants of left-wing Bennite radicalism – whose most recent proponent was the hapless Jeremy Corbyn. It is not for nothing that Starmer has ditched almost every element of the Labour manifesto that he so eagerly embraced not so long ago.

It is perfectly clear that Starmer’s Labour Party will govern for the global elites – not the traditional British working class or those other social strata that have been displaced and left behind by globalization.

Starmer may refer endlessly to his “tool setter” father in interviews, and Angela Rayner may go on ad infinitum about her poverty-stricken background – but this is all posturing and propaganda of the crudest kind. And it did not fool working-class voters in the “red wall” seats last week – they voted for Farage, not Starmer and Rayner.

Starmer’s first post-election speech is a surer guide to the elite policies that his Labour government will pursue.

Starmer immediately shut down the hopelessly ineffective Rwanda scheme – thereby foreshadowing in reality, whatever he may say publicly, his commitment to increased levels of immigration, a key global elite policy. Sunak was also committed to increased levels of immigration, notwithstanding his stated policy position to the contrary.

Also revealing was his comment that “we have too many prisoners” and his appointment of James Timpson as the minister of state for prisons. Timpson is on record as having said that two-thirds of those in British prisons should not be there, and he is famous for employing ex-prisoners in his shoe-repair chain.

Could there be a more elitist and woke policy than freeing prisoners in large numbers? The residents of London and other large cities in the UK must be looking forward the increased crime rates in which such a policy will inevitably result.

Starmer also reaffirmed his commitment to supporting the Zelensky regime in Ukraine in the strongest possible terms.

There can be no doubt that a Starmer Labour government will pursue elite policies such as these, and it will resort to radical constitutional reform in order to do so. Peter Hitchens has correctly drawn attention to Starmer’s radical plans to reform the House of Lords and further empower an already ideologically committed judiciary.

All of this is about governing in the interests of the global elites – it has nothing whatsoever to do with genuine left-wing politics.

What then can we expect to happen in British politics under a Starmer government over the next five years?

First, it is inevitable that the Conservative Party will disappear as a major political force.

The Tories have been deeply divided and led by fourth-rate politicians for decades, and Brexit exacerbated these problems to such an extent that the party tore itself apart once Brexit was finally implemented, after a debilitating internal battle, by Boris Johnson.

Johnson – although a flawed politician in some respects – was the only effective leader that the Conservative Party has had in the past decade.

Like Benjamin Disraeli and David Lloyd George, Johnson was something of a Tory outsider, a charismatic leader who understood that the electoral appeal of the Conservative Party could be significantly broadened by adopting policies that appealed to British patriotism and the traditional working class.

Johnson’s “get Brexit done” and “leveling up” policies allowed the Conservatives to appeal to disaffected traditional Labour voters and, at the same time, effectively neutralize the appeal of Nigel Farage’s UKIP Party.

These policies, together with Johnson’s charismatic leadership and campaigning skills, enabled him to win an extraordinary 80-seat majority at the 2019 election.

Notwithstanding this unprecedented electoral victory, within three years the Remainers and others within the Conservative Party (Johnson never had the support of a large majority of MPs) had joined forces with with the global elites, the mainstream woke UK media, the Supreme Court, and a raft of fourth-rate politicians of all political persuasions to ruthlessly destroy Johnson’s political career.

He was finally finished off by a narcissistic and vengeful populace who were, wrongly and foolishly, outraged at the Partygate affair.

Once Johnson had been deposed, the fate of a deeply divided Conservative Party under utterly incompetent leaders like Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak was sealed. In fact, last week’s collapse of the Tory vote was richly deserved, and Truss in particular deserved to lose her seat.

And one only has to observe the unseemly squabbling taking place this week between the half-a-dozen or so candidates for the Tory leadership – they include such luminaries as Robert Jennick and James Cleverly – to see that the Conservative Party does not have a viable future no matter who is eventually chosen to lead it.

What is the likely fate of the Starmer Labour government?

Like all mainstream governments in Western countries that represent the interests of the global elites, Starmer’s government will be unable to remedy any of the fundamental problems confronting the UK – because it is unwilling to introduce the genuinely radical economic and social reforms that would be necessary to bring that about.

Stramer’s government will be unable to resuscitate the ailing British economy. It will do nothing to solve the cost-of-living crisis or reduce energy prices. It will not be able to reverse the decline of the NHS or improve the delivery of government services. It will continue to support America’s proxy wars with all the adverse domestic consequences that follow from such a misguided foreign policy. And its firm commitment to woke policies will only intensify the culture wars that have so deeply divided British society for the past few decades.

It follows that, within a relatively short period of time, the British electorate will become disenchanted with Starmer and his government. Its fate will mirror the fate of the Biden, Macron and Sholz administrations.

The Reform Party will probably become the major beneficiary of this disillusionment – but whether it will be able to capitalize on it is very much an open question.

Populist parties do not have a good record of delivering on their promises, and the UK’s first-past-the-post electoral system makes it almost impossible for minor parties to win large numbers of seats.

Farage himself was in two minds about coming back to lead the Reform Party and contest the election – and five years is a long time to spend in opposition as the leader of a party with only five MPs.

The French electoral system is much more favourable towards radical right-wing parties than the British, and in America Donald Trump had to take over the Republican Party in order for it to become an effective political force. Trump realized in the 1990s that he could not win the presidency as a third-party candidate.

If Farage is to become a significant political leader he may have to take over what is left of the Conservative Party after last week’s election.

Rather than bring about a “shift to the center” or usher in a “radical left-wing government,” Keir Starmer’s election victory is, therefore, much more likely to ensure that UK politics staggers along in much the same chaotic and dysfunctional fashion that it has for the past decade.

That appears to be the most that voters in Western democracies can hope for these days.

Graham Hryce is an Australian journalist and former media lawyer, whose work has been published in The Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, the Sunday Mail, the Spectator and Quadrant.

July 10, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism | | Leave a comment

High-tech Western weapons ‘useless’ in Ukraine conflict – WSJ

RT | July 10, 2024

Russia’s electronic warfare capabilities have rendered precision-guided Western munitions “useless” in the Ukraine conflict, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. With their guidance systems scrambled, some of these weapons have reportedly been retired within weeks of hitting the battlefield.

When the US announced the delivery of GPS-guided Excalibur artillery shells to Ukraine in 2022, pro-Kiev outlets predicted that the $100,000-per-shot projectiles would make “Ukrainian artillery a whole lot more accurate” and “cause Russia a world of pain.”

However, the Russian military adapted within weeks, Ukrainian commanders told the Wall Street Journal. Russian signal-jamming equipment was used to feed false coordinates to the shells and interfere with their fuses, causing them to veer off course or fall to the ground as duds.

“By the middle of last year, the M982 Excalibur munitions, developed by RTX and BAE Systems, became essentially useless and are no longer employed,” the newspaper stated, paraphrasing the Ukrainian commanders.

The Soviet Union invested heavily in electronic warfare (EW) during the 1980s, viewing jamming technology as a crucial bulwark against the guided missiles and shells that the US was beginning to develop at the time. While weapons such as the 1990s-era Excalibur shells were used by the US to devastating effect in Iraq and Afghanistan, officials and analysts in Washington have since concluded that they are far less effective against a peer-level opponent like Russia.

“The Russians have gotten really, really good” at interfering with guided munitions, US Deputy Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante told the WSJ.

Retired US General Ben Hodges, who once predicted that Western weapons would help Ukraine seize Crimea by last winter, told the newspaper that “we probably made some bad assumptions because over the last 20 years we were launching precision weapons against people that could not do anything about it… and Russia and China do have these capabilities.”

Some of NATO’s most advanced weapons systems have met a similar fate in Ukraine. The newly-developed Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB), a joint project of Boeing in the US and Saab in Sweden, was given to Ukraine earlier this year, with Kiev’s troops firing these GPS-guided munitions before their American counterparts. However, it has since been pulled from the battlefield after it proved completely ineffective against Russian EW.

Likewise, Russian EW has significantly blunted the accuracy of Ukraine’s Western-provided GMLRS missiles, which are fired from the HIMARS multiple-launch rocket system, Ukrainian soldiers told the WSJ. As with the Excalibur shells, GMLRS missiles were once described by pro-Kiev pundits and analysts as a “game changer” that would swing the conflict in Ukraine’s favor.

Russia has long insisted that no amount of Western weapons systems will prevent it from achieving victory. Supplying these weapons is a “futile project” that will only encourage Kiev to “commit new crimes,” Moscow’s ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, warned last week.

July 10, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

NATO preparing for ‘protracted wars’ – Pentagon

RT | July 10, 2024

The US and its allies are planning to continue ramping up defense spending, which will ensure long-term demand for weapons, US Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks told a gathering of arms manufacturers during a NATO event on Tuesday.

Speaking at the NATO Summit Defense Industry Forum, the official praised NATO members for boosting their military budgets since the initial flare-up of the Ukraine conflict in 2014, and particularly after the open hostilities between Ukraine and Russia erupted in 2022. Over the past decade, the average annual increase in spending was 72%, adjusted for inflation, she said.

That reversed a period when “defense industries across the Atlantic were affected by decades of inconsistent funding and blinkered demand signals,” she said. She said the current thinking is: “Production matters. Production is deterrence.”

Western arms manufacturers have the ability “not just to compete, but to out-compete and prevail” over Russia and other nations that the US considers its rivals, including China, North Korea and Iran.

“That includes ensuring we are prepared for the possibility of protracted war, which every ally must be prepared for – and not just in Europe, either,” Hicks warned.

Developing the manufacturing base on both sides of the Atlantic in a way that combines “information-age ingenuity and industrial-era capacity” will benefit US allies in the Pacific, such as Australia, Japan and South Korea, the official said.

She claimed that Western political systems are inherently beneficial for building “arsenals of democracy,” since they foster innovation and transnational cooperation. On the other hand, “autocracies,” according to her reasoning, can’t move beyond “just landing at each other’s airfields, or sailing ships alongside each other for a few days at a time.”

The Pentagon is looking for ways “to be a better customer,” Hicks said, by streamlining its internal processes, delivering targeted investments in the defense sector, and providing security services to weapons businesses.

Russian officials have described NATO as a tool of US geopolitical ambition and a way to secure a permanent market for American weapons in Europe. Moscow has cited Washington’s pledge that Ukraine will eventually join the bloc together with NATO’s increased presence in Ukraine since 2014 as among the key triggers of the ongoing conflict.

Beijing has accused the US of being stuck in a “Cold War mentality” and playing “zero-sum games” with non-Western nations, including China.

July 10, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

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