World War Three Thread....

[American Patriot]

RT: Moscow to ban US from using Russian rocket engines for military launches

Posted on May 13, 2014 by Jean
Published time: May 13, 2014 13:33
Edited time: May 13, 2014 15:17
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin (RIA Novosti)




Moscow is banning Washington from using Russian-made rocket engines, which the US has used to deliver its military satellites into orbit, said Russia’s Deputy PM, Dmitry Rogozin, who is in charge of space and defense industries.


“We proceed from the fact that without guarantees that our engines are used for non-military spacecraft launches only, we won’t be able to supply them to the US,” Rogozin is cited as saying by Interfax news agency.


If such guarantees aren’t provided the Russian side will also be unable to perform routine maintenance for the engines, which have been previously delivered to the US, he added.

The US relies on Russian-made RD-180 and NK-33 engines to launch military and civilian satellites into space, with NASA saying it’s unlikely to produce a fully operational rocket engine of its own before 2020.


The Deputy PM also announced that Russia is considering halting the operations of all American GPS stations on its territory, starting from June 1.
Such a measure would be employed if the US fails to decide on hosting stations for Russia’s space-based satellite navigation system, GLONASS, before May 31, he explained.

“We’re starting negotiations, which will last for three months. We hope that by the end of summer these talks will bring a solution that will allow our cooperation to be restored on the basis of parity and proportionality,” Rogozin said.


But if the negotiations turn out to be fruitless, operation of the 11 American GPS station in Russia will “be permanently terminated” from September 1, he warned.


According to Rogozin, Moscow also isn’t planning to agree to the US offer of prolonging operation of the International Space Station (ISS).


“We currently project that we’ll require the ISS until 2020,” he said. “We need to understand how much profit we’re making by using the station, calculate all the expenses and depending on the results decide what to do next.”

“A completely new concept for further space exploration” is currently being developed by the relevant Russian agencies, the official explained.
Previously, the US space agency, NASA, had asked Russia’s Roscosmos to keep the ISS in orbit till 2024.

[American Patriot]

Ukraine: 6 soldiers killed in ambush

By Laura Smith-Spark, Atika Shubert and Kellie Morgan, CNN
updated 11:38 AM EDT, Tue May 13, 2014


[File photo] Valery Bolotov waits to cast his vote in Lugansk on May 11, 2014.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: Six soldiers killed near Kramatorsk
• Luhansk "people's governor" is injured in an attack on his vehicle, his press office says
• The names of 13 people newly sanctioned by the European Union are released
• Canada announces sanctions on six Russian and six Ukrainian citizens

Donetsk, Ukraine (CNN) -- Six members of the Ukrainian armed forces were killed on Tuesday in a "terrorist attack," the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said in a statement on its website.
The incident took place in the village of Oktyabrski in the Slovyansk region, about 20 kilometers from Kramatorsk, during "a unit movement from the military base." The location is in volatile eastern Ukraine.
"Our soldiers were attacked in an ambush. Terrorists attacked our land troops with grenades. The attackers were more than 30 people and set an ambush near the river," the ministry said.
"After a long shootout, six soldiers of The Ukrainian Armed Services were killed," the statement said.
In another incident in eastern Ukraine, a separatist leader has been injured in a suspected assassination attempt, a spokesman said Tuesday, amid continuing turmoil in the wake of a controversial weekend referendum on independence.
A car carrying the "Luhansk people's governor" Valeriy Bolotov was fired on Tuesday in the Luhansk region, said Vasiliy Nikitin, a spokesman for the self-declared "Luhansk People's Republic."
Bolotov suffered a gunshot injury, but Nikitin said it was "light" and not life threatening. It is not known who was behind the shooting.
The reported attacks comesamid simmering tensions in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, where pro-Russian separatists staged a referendum Sunday asking residents whether they should declare independence from Ukraine.
CNN poll: 56% of Ukrainians are pro-EU
Swedish FM: Crisis hurts Russian economy
Russian FM: We respect Ukrainian vote
Photos: Crisis in Ukraine


Speaking in Brussels, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk had strong words for Russia, saying it continues to support the separatists behind the unrest.
"Russia will fail to make a failed state," he said, as he urged Moscow to condemn the pro-Russian militants.
Yatsenyuk said the priority for Ukraine was to hold free and fair national elections on May 25, after which, he said, "we expect to have a new, legitimate president."
The Prime Minister warned that Ukraine would pursue Russia through the courts over its annexation in March of Ukraine's Crimea territory, including an oil and natural gas company based there.
Ukraine will also challenge Russian energy giant Gazprom in court unless it agrees to renegotiate the price it charges Ukraine for natural gas supplies, Yatsenyuk said. Gazprom said the recent sharp increase, from $268.50 to $485 per 1,000 cubic meters, was necessary because Ukraine is billions of dollars in arrears.
Yatsenyuk said Ukraine would pay what it owes, but only if Gazprom revises the natural gas deal in line with market rates.
"Russia is to stop using natural gas as another type of Russian weapon," he said.
'Decisive role'
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, speaking alongside Yatsenyuk earlier in Kiev, warned that the situation in eastern Ukraine is "still dangerous and threatening," and backed efforts by the interim government to start a national dialogue.
Steinmeier said the May 25 presidential elections would play a "decisive role" in restoring calm to Ukraine and urged steps to disarm the illegal separatist groups who have seized key buildings in the east.
He also praised the interim government for its handling of the crisis.
Where unrest has occurred in E. Ukraine



Steinmeier's visit is the latest in a series by foreign diplomats seeking a peaceful resolution to what has become the worst East-West crisis since the end of the Cold War.
Their efforts have done little so far to prevent pro-Russian militants from tightening their grip on Ukraine's east and south
Nearly 90% of voters in the Donetsk area favored secession, the head of the central election commission for the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic said Tuesday. He said just over 10% voted against the move.
Separatist leader Denis Pushilin said Monday that the Donetsk region was not only independent, but also would ask to join Russia. There was no immediate response from Ukraine's government or the European Union.
NATO chief talks Ukraine, Afghanistan
Many vote in favor of independence
Some Ukraine voters seen voting twice
Pushilin's announcement was reminiscent of separatists' moves in the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which Russia annexed after Crimeans voted to secede from Ukraine and join Russia in a March 16 referendum.
Acting Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov said Monday of the referendum: "That farce the terrorists call a referendum is nothing else but a propagandist cover for killings, kidnapping, violence and other grave crimes."
EU, Canada impose sanctions
Sunday's referendum was also widely condemned by the international community.
In its wake, Western leaders have imposed fresh sanctions in the hopes of pressuring Russia into reining in the pro-Russian militants.
The European Union sanctioned 13 people Monday over the Ukraine crisis, bringing the total number subject to EU visa bans and asset freezes to 61, an EU diplomat said. Two Crimean entities are also sanctioned.
Those targeted in the latest round, whose names were only released Tuesday, include Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, the self-declared Mayor of Slovyansk, a rebel stronghold in the Donetsk region, and Vladimir Shamanov, commander of the Russian airborne troops.
Meanwhile, Canada has imposed sanctions on 12 additional people, six Russians and six Ukrainians, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a statement.
Canada's expanded sanctions list includes Russian military chief Valery Gerasimov; Russian State Duma vice-speakers Sergei Neverov and Lyudmila Shevtsova; and Igor Girkin, known as "Strelok," who is accused of being a Russian saboteur and militant leader in eastern Ukraine.
Also named by Canada are Crimean politicians and five representatives of the self-proclaimed republics and militias in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Canada's government had previously approved sanctions against nine Russian politicians and businessmen, two Russian credit organizations and 16 Russian companies.
Russia, which said it respected the will of the people of Luhansk and Donetsk in Sunday's vote, has not so far responded to Pushilin's announcement that he will seek annexation by the Russian Federation.
Moscow denies having direct influence over the separatist groups. They went ahead with the referendum despite a call from Russian President Vladimir Putin to delay it.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters Monday that Russia finds the EU sanctions highly regrettable, according to Russian state media.
"It's an absolutely thoughtless and irresponsible policy that doesn't match reality in any way," news agency ITAR Tass quoted him as saying.
Hague: More sanctions in the pipeline
Addressing Parliament in London on Tuesday, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague urged Russia to use its influence to de-escalate the situation and disarm the militants -- or face more tough measures.
Additional sanctions are being prepared, he said, and the European Union is ready to impose them if needed.
"Because we have now widened the criteria substantially there are now many more individuals and entities who could be added," he said of the sanctions list.
Hague added that planning for a range of wider economic and trade measures is "at an advanced stage."
EU members accepted that such measures would hurt their own economies as well as Russia's, Hague said, but were united over the "triggers" that would mean they were brought into force.
On Twitter, Hague said that Britain would back Ukraine's May 25 presidential elections by providing 100 observers for the Organization for Security and Cooperation mission and £429,000 ($723,000) in financial aid.

[American Patriot]

Russia to suspend US GPS stations in tit-for-tat spat

Get lost, Russian deputy tells GPS

By Simon Rockman, 13 May 2014


Russia is about to shut down American GPS stations on Russian soil – not as a reaction to the Crimean crisis, but instead in response to Washington's failure to agree to host ground stations for the Russian GLONASS system.


Russian deputy foreign minister Dmitry Rogozin said the suspension would take place beginning June 1, and will involve the stations of the American GPS satellite navigation system on the territory of Russia.





Rogozin took to twitter to assure Russians that this action will not affect the quality of the received signal by Russian users of the navigation system. "We hope that these negotiations will find solutions that will restore proportional cooperation; if not, from September 1, the operation of these stations will be stopped completely," he explained.
The Russian Federal Space Agency – aka Roscosmos – appealed to the US authorities for permission to build several measuring stations for the GLONASS system in May 2012, but the parties have failed to reach an agreement.


The New York Times blames the CIA and Pentagon for not allowing GLONASS stations in America, saying that they fear the installations could be used to spy on American interests. There may also be commercial reasons for the US to promote its domestic system over the Russian one.


The American Global Positioning System – more simply known as GPS – initially had military and civilian modes that reduced the accuracy for non-authorized users. However, during 1991's Operation Desert Storm, when some military equipment only had civil GPS systems, the higher level of accuracy was opened up for everyone and this has remained the case.


According to Rogozin, Russia and the US agreed to build the 11 GPS stations in Russia, with agreements signed in 1992 and 2011. In 2013, GLONASS monitoring stations opened in Brazil, and there are plans to extend the infrastructure to Indonesia, Australia, and Spain.

[American Patriot]

Videos at the original: http://thecommonsenseshow.com/2014/0...t-nuclear-war/


Russia and the U.S. Are Simultaneously Preparing for Imminent Nuclear War

Dave Hodges
May 14, 2014


Any day?



Recently, I wrote an article in which I stated that world could be within a five week window of an all out war in Ukraine which would also involve surrounding Eastern European countries. The premise of the article was based upon the fact that NATO has scheduled massive war games late this spring and early this summer in Ukraine, Poland, Bulgaria and Moldova. The coincidence of these war games represents a clear intention on the part of NATO to consolidate military forces inside Russia’s neighbors in anticipation of an all-out attack by Putin against Ukraine. As I wrote about earlier this week, we are already witnessing the face-off between American paramilitary forces (i.e. Academi, formerly Blackwater) and Russian paramilitary forces (i.e. Vnevedomstvenaya Okhrana) in Ukraine.


If Putin truly intends to fully occupy Ukraine and consolidate Russian control over much of Russia’s gas shipments to the EU, which runs through Ukraine, Putin cannot allow NATO to consolidate its military forces. He must militarily act prior to NATO commencing these war games. The stakes are high as the prize represents the virtual control of much of Europe’s energy. NATO could become fragmented in such a scenario and Putin would be free to gobble up Eastern Europe and Western Europe would become a virtual economic colony of Russia.


Since I wrote the above referenced article on April 21, 2014, events have unfolded which indicate that both the United States are preparing for war against each other and that war will be nuclear. The world has not been this close to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
The Russians Prepare For Nuclear War With the West

According to a Russian navy blog, Russia simulated a nuclear attack involving submarines, bombers and land-based missiles and this massive drill was coordinated under the direct supervision of Putin at the Defense Ministry’s headquarters in Moscow. The nuclear drill simulated a massive retaliatory nuclear strike in response to an enemy attack. This was a live fire drill and involved a Sineva ballistic missile that hit a target on the Kula testing range on the Kamchatka Peninsula. Subsequent warnings were issued to civilian aircraft to stay clear of the massive war games area.

The Russians Have Moved to Lock Down Key Personnel In Anticipation of War

LifeNews is reporting that Russia’s Ministry of Civil Defense, Emergencies and Elimination of Consequences of Natural Disasters has issued travel restrictions to all employees like the country’s firefighters, ambulance drivers and rescue troopers. Additionally, a similar travel ban is imposed for parts of employees under the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) including tens of thousands of police officers, prison guards, and other law enforcement agencies like the Federal Drug Control and the Federal Migration Service. Others listed in the travel ban are personnel with access to state secrets, like certain employees of the Foreign Ministry. According to estimates, the total number of travel-restricted personnel number around 250,000 people.


There are two official explanations given to explain the travel ban. First, the Russian government claims that they are enacting measures to prevent the leaking of state secrets to NATO and the United States in particular. Secondly, the travel ban was issued to prevent the possibility of key personnel, holding sensitive information, from being arrested by U.S. law enforcement agencies and subsequently forced to give up the information.


Interestingly, the duration of the travel ban is interminable. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, exceptions would be made in “exceptional circumstances” and for “good reason.”


Russia’s blacklist and banned countries includes a lengthy list of 150 countries that sensitive Russian personnel can no longer can visit. Izvestia News is reporting that countries like North Korea and Cuba are not on the banned travel list. Wouldn’t North Korea and Cuba be allied with Russia in any upcoming war with the West?


The Western media is suspiciously silent about the Russians airlifting critical supplies which would be used to support a war effort in Eastern Ukraine. Yet, Russia’s Novosti news service is openly reporting that “Ammunition for Special Forces is being airlifted for Slaviansk Operation.” This is highly significant because Ukraine Denetsk region is asking to join Russia. Other regions are likely to follow. Russia is further airlifting ammunition into the same region. Even Ray Charles could see that this constitutes preparations for war in Ukraine!


These reports strongly indicate that nuclear war between Russia and NATO could be imminent.

Americans Are Also Preparing For Nuclear War

According to my friend and present broadcasting colleague, John Moore, a former Green Beret intelligence officer, has recently interviewed Command Sergeant Major Dan Page in which he announced that 1,000 Russian Spetsnaz, each month are pouring into America via Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. Sergeant Page warns that after arriving at Fort Leonard Wood, these Russian special forces are being sent out to other military bases across the country after receiving their initial training at their arrival location.

Clearly, these Spetsnaz commandos would be carrying out fifth column attacks against key American military installations.


In addition to the Page report, the United States government is now preparing for a nuclear attack and its response should a nuclear attack be launched against the U.S. and its interests. The drill is being called Global Lightning.

Conclusion


The fact that Russia and the United States are both conducting nuclear war drills at a time of heightened tensions is a little more than coincidental. The world was in a similar place in 1962 and President Kennedy backed the Russians down with an air and naval blockade. Unfortunately, President Obama is no John Kennedy.

[American Patriot]

Multiple missile launches during a command and control exercise

On May 8, 2014 President of Russia took part in a command and control exercise conducted by the Russian armed forces. Among its main goals, the exercise was devoted to "coordinating actions of various units in countering a large-scale missile- and air-attack." Also, the exercise checked the procedures for launching a "massive launch-on-warning (ответно-встречный) missile strike and countering a nuclear attack by the means of the Moscow missile defense system."


As part of the exercise, the Strategic Rocket Forces launched a Topol/SS-25 ICBM from the Plesetsk test site to the Kura test site in Kamchatka. The warhead was reported to have successfully reached its target.


The Tula submarine of the Project 667BDRM class performed a successful launch of its R-29RM missile from the Barents Sea to the Kura site. Another submarine, Podolsk of the Project 667BDR class, launched a R-29R missile from the Sea of Okhotsk to the Chizha test site at the Kanin Peninsula. Note that this is the first launch of an SLBM from the Podolsk submarine in more than a decade - until recently all launches at the Pacific Fleet were performed from the Sv. Georgiy Pobedonosets submarine.


The exercise also tested communication between the national command authorities and strategic bombers. A Tu-95MS bomber launched six cruise missiles (if the video footage showed the actual launch, it was Kh-55) "against ground targets at the Western military district test site."


At the Priozersk (Sary-Shagan) test site a short-range interceptor (apparently 53T6, known as Gazelle; it's possible that it was the 53T6M, previously tested in December 2011) of the Moscow ABM system was reported to successfully intercept a target that imitated a ballistic missile. Last time the interceptor was tested during the October 2013 exercise.

[American Patriot]

• Multimedia

World

Ammunition for Special Forces Airlifted for Slaviansk Operation

Ukrainian troops near Slaviyansk (Archive)
© RIA Novosti. Mikhail Voskresenskiy



17:47 12/05/2014


MOSCOW, May 12 (RIA Novosti) – Ammunition for servicemen is being transferred by plane to the area of an ongoing special operation in eastern Ukraine’s Slaviansk, the country’s acting Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said Monday.


“We are flying by a cargo plane with soldiers ... We are carrying new ammunition and protective means for Omega [special forces] troops,” Avakov wrote on Facebook.


The Communist Party of Ukraine earlier called on the Kiev authorities to stop the special operation in eastern Ukraine and endorse federalization in an effort to avoid casualties in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.


The Party of Regions has also demanded that Kiev stop the special operation in the southeast of the country.


A prominent parliamentarian, Oleksandr Yefremov, said he is considering turning to international courts to bring to justice those responsible for the crimes, adding that “military actions that result in deaths among civilians cannot be called anything other than a military crime.”


The Russian Foreign Ministry said earlier that Western politicians, including from the US and NATO countries, were responsible for inciting radicals to overthrow the government and escalate the crisis in Ukraine.

[American Patriot]

WW4 File: UKRAINE, RUSSIA AT WAR: Amid Russia’s occupation of Crimea, secession of 2 more Ukrainian regions with intent to join Russian Federation, US Strategic Command conducts nuclear war game, “Global Lightning 14″ military drill involves 10 B-52, 6 B-2 strategic bombers “to deter, dissuade, and defeat current and future threats to the U.S. and our allies”; US Defense Secretary Hagel: “Russia is an adversary in Ukraine, sure”; follows Russian Armed Forces exercise “simulating a U.S. and NATO nuclear attack”; NATO chief Rasmussen to visit Romania May 15-16, reassure ex-communist state of alliance’s support in face of Russian aggression in Ukraine; Bucharest, Moscow exchange sharp words after Romania closed airspace to Russian Dep. PM’s plane, Moldova forces Rogozin’s aircraft to land at Chisinau, confiscates petitions for Transnistrian accession to Russia; Rogozin visited breakaway region for Victory Day events, threatened to return to Romania in “Blackjack” bomber

Leave a comment Posted by periloustimes1 on May 14, 2014



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U.S. to Conduct Strategic Bomber Exercise

Nuclear drills follow ‘massive’ Russian war games last week

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B-52 bomber (AP)



BY: Bill Gertz Follow @BillGertz
May 11, 2014 7:30 pm
The U.S. Strategic Command, which is in charge of waging nuclear war, will hold large-scale bomber exercises this week—days after Russia held what Moscow called “massive” war games simulating a U.S. and NATO nuclear attack.
Ten U.S. B-52 bombers and up to six B-2 strategic bombers will take part in the war games called “Global Lightning 14” from Monday through May 16, the command said in a statement late Sunday.
The purpose is to “demonstrate flexibility and responsiveness in training scenarios throughout the continental U.S.,” the command said in a statement from its Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska headquarters.
“This exercise provides unique training opportunities to incorporate the most current technology and techniques in support of our mission,” said Adm. Cecil Haney, Strategic Command commander. “Continued focus and investment in our strategic capabilities allow US Stratcom to deter, dissuade, and defeat current and future threats to the U.S. and our allies.”
Global Lightning, planned for more than a year, will began days after Russian President Vladimir Putin last week oversaw what Russian defense officials called a “massive” nuclear war drill that simulated U.S. and NATO nuclear attacks.
Stratcom said in its statement, in an apparent reference to the Russian war games, that “the timing of the exercise is unrelated to real-world events.”
Tensions remain high between the United States and Russia over Moscow’s military annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and ongoing pro-Russian unrest in eastern Ukraine.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Sunday declined to categorize Russia as an enemy, despite its aggression in Ukraine.
“We’re not at war with Russia, so do define an enemy as being at war or not at war?” Hagel said on ABC’s This Week.
Russia is “an adversary in Ukraine, sure,” he said.
“But I think that’s a little simplistic to get into either enemy, friend, partner, so on,” Hagel said. “Russia continues to isolate itself for a short-term gain. The Russians may feel that somehow they’re winning, but the war was not about just short term.”
U.S. officials have said some 40,000 to 80,000 Russian troops are deployed within a short distance of Ukraine’s eastern border.
Russia is seeking to create a federated state in Ukraine as part of Putin’s announced plan to restore elements of the Soviet Union. The Russian leader regards many of the former Soviet republics surrounding Russia, including Ukraine, as the “near abroad” that Moscow wants to control.
The Russian war games included the test launch of a SS-25 Topol intercontinental missile and two SS-N-23 submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Additional missile firings included six Russian air-launched nuclear-capable cruise missiles.
It could not be learned if Global Lightning will include U.S. missile launches.
A Stratcom spokeswoman declined to provide further details of the exercise.
“Global Lightning 14 is designed to provide training opportunities and to test and validate command and control procedures for U.S. Strategic Command and its subordinate units,” said Army Lt. Col. Stephanie Bounds, the spokeswoman.
“Just as technology changes, so do the threats. This exercise provides the opportunity to incorporate the most current technology and techniques in support of our mission.”
The command “is constantly honing its capabilities to deter, dissuade, and defeat current and future threats to the U.S. and our allies,” she said.
Bounds declined to provide details of the exercise but said: “All activities are designed to test and validate command and control procedures for U.S. Strategic Command and its subordinate units.”
A U.S. official said the U.S. Cyber Command, part of Strategic Command, will take part in the exercises that are said to include simulated cyber attacks against Strategic Command communications and command systems.
Mark Schneider, a former Pentagon nuclear strategy official, said the Russian exercises appeared intended as a political message to the West.
Schneider said Russia usually holds its nuclear drills in the fall and the timing of last week’s war games “suggests to me that the intent was nuclear intimidation against NATO over the Ukraine.”
Moscow on April 14 also conducted a test launch of a new ICBM called the SS-27 by NATO that carried multiple simulated warheads that analysts say potentially violated the 2010 New START arms treaty.
Moscow and Washington also have been battling over Russia’s plan to upgrade aircraft used in conducting permitted spy flights over the United States that intelligence officials say could undermine U.S. security. The flights are carried out under the Open Skies Treaty.
Russia temporarily blocked a U.S. overflight of Russia and a spokesman mentioned the dispute over the new Russian aircraft in criticizing U.S. officials.
The Obama administration also recently turned down a proposal from Russia aimed at resolving differences over U.S. and NATO missile defenses in Europe. Moscow is opposing the deployment of interceptors and radar in the region and has charged the United States with seeking to counter Russian strategic offensive missiles.
The administration insists the missile defenses are aimed at countering Iranian long-range missile threats.
This entry was posted in National Security and tagged nuclear weapons, Russia, Vladimir Putin. Bookmark the permalink.

Added on May 13, 2014 07:31 am
NATO Secretary General visiting Romania this week

by Romania Insider

The NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen will visit Romania this week, on May 15 and 16, where he will meet the Romanian President Traian Basescu, Prime Minister Victor Ponta, as well as the Foreign Affairs Minister Titus Corlăţean, according to Mediafax newswire.
Fogh Rasmussen, who approaches the end of his mandate, is currently visiting several European states. His previous visit to Romania was in May 2013.
NATO Secretary General Rasmussen starts official trip to Romania with jogging session in Bucharest park

[American Patriot]

Never mind

[American Patriot]

NATO May Back Invasion Of Abkhazia As “Revenge” Against Russia

May 14, 2014 richardrozoff Leave a comment Go to comments
Civil Georgia
May 7, 2014
Sokhumi on Georgia’s NATO Integration


Tbilisi: Breakaway Abkhazia’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday that Georgia’s NATO integration would have extremely negative consequences on regional security.


The breakaway region’s foreign ministry released the statement in response to remarks by Georgian Foreign Minister, Maia Panjikidze, who said that a visit of British Foreign Secretary William Hague to Tbilisi is important for number of reasons, including in the context of the NATO summit in Wales in September. Hague arrived in Tbilisi from Ukraine on Wednesday evening and will hold talks with the Georgian leadership on May 8.


Abkhaz foreign ministry said in its statement that the topics of discussions of Georgian officials with the British Foreign Secretary cause “our concern” because they are directly related to “Abkhazia’s national interests, first and foremost its security.”


“There is every reason to believe that the West is seriously intending to take revenge against Russia and its allies for their unwillingness to accept its [Western] dictate in Ukraine,” the breakaway region’s foreign ministry said.


“It is not ruled out that Abkhazia too may soon become a target of pressure from the Western states. Such a scenario would suit quite well revanchist forces in Georgia, who cannot reconcile themselves to existence of independent Republic of Abkhazia and who are not giving up the hope to ‘return Sukhumi’,” it said.


It also said that Georgia’s “NATO perspectives should be considered in the context” of recent remarks by NATO’s top military commander in Europe, U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove, who said on May 6 that NATO has to consider permanently stationing troops in its eastern European allies.


“It is not ruled out that some ‘hot heads’ in Tbilisi will be happy to make use of this situation in order to achieve the deployment of NATO bases in Georgia. It will have extremely negative consequences for regional security,” the breakaway region’s foreign ministry said, adding that in that case Sokhumi would seek to further boost military cooperation with Russia, which already has at least 3,500 army soldiers plus border guard troops in Abkhazia.


Russia announced on May 6 its intention to send over 80 new, upgraded armored personnel carriers to its military base in Abkhazia this summer.

[American Patriot]

World War III: gas as a weapon of mass destruction

ChristianConcepsDaily ^ | May 14th, 2014 | Yuri Felshtynsky
Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2014 9:02:23 AM


There is something unusual (and cynical) that the occupation of Ukraine by Russia is combined with simultaneous demand to pay out billions of dollars to Russia for past and future supplies of Russian gas in not yet occupied part of Ukraine. Actually in the occupied as well, as the Russian gas was supplied in the Crimea and Donetsk and Luhansk regions.


(Excerpt) Read more at christianideasdaily.com ...


World War III: Gas as a weapon of mass destruction

Posted on May 14, 2014

Russian president Vladimir Putin and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at the opening of the Blue Stream Gas Pipeline/Wikimedia/kremlin.ru


Until 1918 Europe exists and saw itself in borders of empires. We knew two continental empires: Russian and Austro-Hungarian. The First World War was an outcome of desire of European nations (Germany, France and Great Britain) to keep and expand their foreign colonies. Victory and defeat was measured in acquired or lost territories.

There could be no victory without an annexation.


Revolution in Russia in 1917 and the end of the WWI led to collapse of European continental empires – Russian and Austro-Hungarian, but it did not change the concept of seizures. In 1939 Europe has again plunged into a phase of expansions. Nazi Germany in front of the eyes of the world was rapidly becoming a continental empire with unpredictable and ever-increasing appetite. Stalin’s SSSR sought to as minimum restore the territory of the Russian Empire and as maximum – capture the whole of Europe.

Hitler was open about his plans. Stalin was hiding his. Nonetheless by the beginning of the WWII it was obvious that Europe has already been divided by two tyrants, who measured strength by number of divisions, tanks and planes. Germany and USSA were joint by a third state, an Asian one – Japan. It has also measured it strength by number of divisions, tanks, planes and ships .


Unlike these states, which can rightly be called aggressor countries, the rest of the world lived blithely. Leading democracies of Europe – France and England, were not in a position to arm so quickly as it would harm the welfare of their countries. European states were too unorganised and egoistic to think about the coming danger. National contradictions prevented cohesive activities to counter potential aggression. Everyone thought that after the sad experience of the WWI, mankind will be able to avoid a new conflict.


Nonetheless, the WWII began. However, by the middle of 1941, the initiators of this war, aggressor countries, Germany and the USSR have become enemies, which along with involvement of the USA has saved the Western Europe from destruction; and defeated Germany and Japan were forced to abandon their aggressive policy. Measurement of strength by number of divisions, tanks, planes and ships turned out to be a fundamental error in actions of these truly great states.


After suffering a crushing defeat in World War II and being almost completely destroyed by the bombing of the ally forces, Germany and Japan in a surprisingly short time regained their economic power and a few decades later took a leading position in the global economy without help of armoured divisions and Luftwaffe, without aircraft carriers and bombers. However to understand the obvious, these countries had to go through lessons of brutal military defeat.

The Soviet government did not have a brutal defeat in the Great War.

Occupation of Eastern Europe, support of regimes of distant socialist countries like Cuba or Vietnam, a war in Afghanistan failed to prevent the loss of Soviet influence in the world and the collapse of the economic system of the USSR, because like in case of Germany and Japan, the military force was not the guarantor of political and economic domination and created only apparent omnipotence of superpower.


In 1991 the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has abandoned the power with the same ease as it took it in 1917. Soviet political influence in Europe, which was based on military presence and strength ended with a crushing defeat of the USSR, similar to the defeat of Germany and japan in the WWII.


It seemed that like Germany and Japan, Russia learned its lessons from this defeat. After a decade of instability in 1991-2000, Russia was presented to the world as a leading economic state, whose strength is measured not by the panzer divisions and number of warheads aimed at Western Europe and the U.S. but by oil, gas and other resources, which were supplied all over the world. It turned out that to have influence by economic means is much more effective and cheap than a military conquest.
By 2014 Russians became rich tourists who were associated with money, and not with AK: not as an aggressor and occupying forces but as profitable clients, customers, investors wasting their money earned by supply of resources.


Nevertheless, the situation was not cloudless. The main problem in Russia was absence of democracy as such. Years of Yeltsin brought Russia a market economy and freedom, but they did not create truly democratic institutions, which ensure civil liberties of society, independence and integrity of the courts and protecting its citizens security agencies. Not without help from Yeltsin, who compromised himself with two Chechen wars, and corruption scandals, a former KGB officer came to power in Russia . Aged Yeltsin handed him over the control of the country, just as aged Hindenburg handed chancellorship of Germany to Hitler.


Once in power, Putin has ceased to consider the opinion of the population, deprived it of its right to vote in all matters relating to governance, both foreign and internal government policy. Level of isolation of the voters from the Kremlin leadership, the majority of which began to consist of ex-KGB agents, was now absolute. Putin ceased to care about opinion of citizens as elections were rigged and the media was under total control of the government. The Parliament, the Russian courts and law enforcement agencies, both central and local, subordinate only to the Kremlin.


With the absolute unaccountability to the people, Russian leaders who were brought up behind the walls of the KGB, returned to the old Soviet principles of military pressure. In 1999 the Russian army invaded Chechnya for the second time. In August of 2008, the Russian army crossed the Georgian state border and invaded Georgia. The excuse used for the invasion was very similar to the one used by Hitler: protection of the interests of citizens living outside the empire. Hitler was protecting Germans in Austria, Sudetenland and Danzig in exactly the same way. The Russian government was defending the rights of Russian citizens in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The first use of the Russian Army for external expansion since 1991 passed with impunity.

Thus a dangerous precedent was created, and with the improvement of the economic condition of Russia temptation of the Russian government to use the army against a weak opponent increased and not disappeared. The risk of military intervention for all countries bordering Russia, became an absolute reality.


In contrast to the classical military intervention, which we saw in Georgia in 2008, in Ukraine the Russian government combines military operations with economic pressure. There is something unusual (and cynical) that the occupation of Ukraine by Russia is combined with simultaneous demand to pay out billions of dollars to Russia for past and future supplies of Russian gas in not yet occupied part of Ukraine. Actually in the occupied as well, as the Russian gas was supplied in the Crimea and Donetsk and Luhansk regions.


It is clear that acceptance of these rules of game is largely to be blamed on, not properly formed, Ukrainian government. It still refuses to realise (and explain to people) that Russia declared a war to Ukraine, that indignant lamentations of Kiev regarding “treacherous” attacks of “terrorists” on the Ukrainian military bases is naivety and the negotiations about new conditions of supply of gas is a feint of the Russian leadership. Soon the supply of Russian gas to Ukraine will be terminated under one pretext or another. Under such circumstances the question should be put in a different dimension: Ukraine should submit to the Russian leadership a bill for military action against Ukraine, in particular for the annexation of the Crimea. Until Kremlin will settle this debt and return the Crimea back to Ukraine all questions regarding past debts and future Ukrainian payments to the Russian side should be considered premature.


It is time for Ukraine to present its case to Russia and not keep justifying itself regarding missed payment for gas. From 2014 the whole civilized world, and not only Ukraine, is dealing with a racketeering state in the face of Russia, which is not different from a nuclear blackmail, because there is no difference between a phrase “surrender or I will turn the gas off” and a phrase “surrender or I will push the nuclear button”. Gas in the hands of the Russian government is just another type of weapon of mass destruction. Russian gas blackmail is a kind of barrage before the military invasion of Europe. One must fight the enemy with its own weapon, including presenting billion dollars bills.

[American Patriot]

PressTV: Britain offers to send more fighter jets to Baltic

Posted on May 14, 2014 by Jean
Tue May 13, 2014 11:58PM GMT


The UK plans to send more fighter jets to the Baltic states to reassure its NATO allies as tensions between Russia and the West are rising over Ukraine.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Tuesday that the UK will offer to deploy two more Typhoon jets to the Baltic region to carry out air patrols over Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

“I think it’s very important to give reassurance to our Eastern members at this time and to step up to the plate and make sure Britain plays its part,” Cameron told a parliamentary committee.

Britain has already sent four fighter jets to the region.


Cameron also said that Britain would participate in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s upcoming exercises and that he was considering other ways that Britain could provide logistical support to the Baltic states.


NATO plans to expand its air defense in the region and also has military exercises scheduled for the coming months.


The Western military buildup in Russia’s neighboring countries has raised concerns of direct confrontation between the Brussels-based military alliance and Moscow over Ukraine.


Russia’s relations with the West are at an all time low since the Cold War over Ukraine.


Tensions between the Western powers and Moscow heightened after Crimea declared independence from Ukraine and formally applied to become part of the Russian Federation following a referendum in March.

[American Patriot]

Putin Marches Towards World War III?

April 16, 2014

RUSH: UK Daily Mail Online, a guy named Edward Lucas, writes, "I hope I'm wrong, but historians may look back and say that this was the start of World War III." He's talking about Putin striking at Ukraine and Crimea and the tanks. (Drudge's headline is "World War III.") His point is that Putin is striking at the heart of the West, just because they're going at Ukraine.


Remember, the West promised to defend Ukraine. It would be well worth your while to remember that Ukraine disarmed and demilitarized on that promise. There was a treaty that originated in the Clinton years, and it was reaffirmed in 2009, signed again by Obama. So Ukraine disarmed. They're sitting ducks. They got rid of their military; they got rid of weapons.


They did it in exchange for a promise from us and the UK and the Western democracies to protect them should something like this happen, except we're not. We're threatening sanctions. We're huffing and puffing. But basically what we're doing is taking over the Census to jury-rig the uninsured numbers. We're making speeches out to college campi. We're getting all hopped up on who the next late night comedian is gonna be.
Meanwhile, Putin is marching.


As Mr. Lucas writes, "We can chose to surrender any responsibility we have to protect Ukraine and the Baltic states ... Or we can mount a last-ditch attempt to deter Russia from furthering its imperial ambitions." And those imperial ambitions are to reassemble, to reconstitute the Soviet Union. That is what Putin wants to do. He is former KGB. That has always been his long-term desire.


He says, "If we do choose to resist Putin, we will risk a terrifying military escalation, which I do not think it an exaggeration to say could bring us to the brink of nuclear war." Now, that, I think, is something written to grab attention readers of the newspaper, but that is the logical progression if things get out of hand. His point is: What do we do here?



Do we just let Putin have it and get away with a strike at the heart of the West, or do we try to stop him? And if we try to stop him with words and doctors and nurses and clean water, negotiation, global warming threats -- and try to appeal to his good conscience and not destroy the planet and all -- and if that doesn't work, then what do we do? Well, we've pledged to defend Ukraine.


If we don't... If we do that militarily, oh, people are worried about that. If we don't, people are worried about that. That's something real that's going on and is significant, that is totally unnoticed by vast majority of people. I mean, there are tanks with Russian flags on them in east Ukraine, and the Drive-Bys are calling it a civil war.


It's not. It's an invasion. The reason they call it a civil war is because we have no business getting involved in civil wars. "Remember Vietnam? How did that go? How did that work out for us? If it's a civil war, it's none of our business! We stay away."


BREAK TRANSCRIPT


RUSH: To J.R. in Raleigh, North Carolina. Great to have you on the program. Hello.


CALLER: Hey, Rush. How are you, buddy?


RUSH: Just fine, buddy. I'm glad to hear from you.



CALLER: Say, I'm a longtime listener, and we love you out here, man. I just wanted to see if you heard what I heard on the news this morning. I got the biggest laugh out of what Obama did over the weekend.


RUSH: What did he do?


CALLER: Him and Putin were playing, "Don't sink my battleship," over the telephone.


RUSH: (laughing)


CALLER: When them Russian planes were buzzing one of our ships out there in the Black Sea, Obama called Putin, and they were discussing it on the telephone.
RUSH: What do you think Obama said to him?


CALLER: (laughing) He called kissed his ass, I'm sure, but I don't know. I just thought it was funny.


RUSH: Well, what do you think Putin's doing buzzing our ship?


CALLER: Well, I think he's just daring Obama to make a move, to do something.


RUSH: Nah, that's not what he's doing, I don't think.


CALLER: He's laughing at him, I know that.


RUSH: Well, that may be. There may be that, but I'll tell you what. Putin has been doing this for a while. Russia has these giant bombers, these giant propeller airplanes he calls the Bear, the Bear Bomber. They've got other big airplanes. When the Soviet Union went kaput, when the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union went out of business, those airplanes and those military flights and got grounded.


Putin came back into power and for years those planes have been flying what appear to be reconnaissance missions against us and getting very close to US territory, even the continental United States, CONUS territory. So it's not new that Putin would be doing that. I think Putin's flexing his muscles. I think Putin is daring Obama. I don't know if he's daring Obama to respond, but buzzing our ship, it was day before...

I think it was last weekend or last week they did a number of different flybys. It is a bit of a challenge. It's Putin telling everybody who he is. I don't know if he's trying to goad Obama into any kind of a response, but he certainly is, in the old-fashioned way, just demonstrating manhood here. At the same time he's trying to demonstrate that his opponents are afraid of him.


He's trying to demonstrate that he's intimidating his opponents. Let me put it this way. Remember Mikhail Sergeyevich, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, had that birthmark on his head? You ever notice that thing (as I pointed out constantly) was growing when he ran the Soviet Union? It coincided with Soviet expansionism. So did that birthmark. You could see the East Coast. You could see Florida on that birthmark. If Putin had one, it would be growing right now.


That's what all this military activity really means.

[American Patriot]

General News 5/11/2014 at 15:09:36
U.S. Overthrow in the Ukraine Risks Nuclear War With Russia
By Sherwood Ross




opednews.com

By subverting the elected government of The Ukraine, President Obama has restarted a dangerous and costly Cold War with Russia that literally threatens life on the planet.

This reckless president, who has already bombed six countries, (Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq) is risking a possible escalation of the Ukraine crisis he helped foster, into World War III against Russia.

Victoria Nuland, Mr. Obama's Undersecretary of State for Europe and Eurasia, stated at a Washington conference last Dec. 13 that since 1991 the U.S. has invested $5 billion in Ukraine to install "a good form of democracy."

But in an article published by Global Research, Bill Van Auken identified the "good democrats" the U.S. has been aiding in The Ukraine as those responsible for last February's "fascist-led coup that installed an unelected ultra-nationalist government in which neo-Nazis from the Right Sector and the Svoboda party hold prominent positions."

Paul Craig Roberts, of the Institute For Political Economy and former high treasury official under President Reagan, has written the U.S. objective in the current crisis "is to restart the Cold War by forcing the Russian government to occupy the Russian-speaking areas of present day Ukraine where protesters are objecting to the stooge anti-Russian government installed in Kiev by the American coup."

The heightened tensions, says The Nation in its May 19th editorial, "will almost certainly result in a new nuclear arms race, a prospect made worse by Obama's provocative public assertion that 'our conventional forces are significantly superior to the Russians.'"

Russian authority Professor Francis Boyle of the University of Illinois, Champaign, says the U.S./NATO/European Union "are promoting the destabilization and the breakup of Ukraine in order to achieve the NATO goal of moving into Ukrainian territory closer to Russia." The U.S., for a long time, has been attempting to get The Ukraine into NATO, he noted.

Obama now has broken the promise President George H.W. Bush gave to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that if he agreed to the reunification of Germany, NATO would move no farther east, toward Russia's boundaries, Boyle said. He adds, "The Obama administration and NATO are maneuvering humanity into a reverse Cuban Missile Crisis right on the borders of Russia. Can World War III be far behind?"

Author Roberts said NATO official Alexander Vershbow, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, told reporters NATO has given up on "drawing Moscow closer" and soon will deploy a large number of combat forces in Eastern Europe. And so the dreaded Cold War, with all its staggering cost, with all its immeasurable weight of fear, begins again.

One wonders what the U.S. reaction might be to a Russian warning that it was going to station armies in Mexico or Canada? It should not be forgotten that Russian foreign policy in recent years has been one of peaceful contraction while President Obama's has been one of violent expansion. This is reflected in the official figures for military spending last year compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

The U.S., it reports, spent $640 billion of a world total of $1747 billion, or 37% of all. After the U.S. came China, $188 billion; Russia $88 billion; Saudi Arabia, $67 billion and France $61 billion. U.S. arms spending is now greater than the next nine nations combined.

And while Russia has fewer than a dozen military bases world-wide, most of them built in former Soviet territory, the U.S. has more than 1,000 bases, in addition to 1,000 located on its own soil.

Given the fact that the U.S. is pounding on Moscow's door; that it is actively engaged in half a dozen shooting wars; that it has 1,000 military bases abroad; that it leads the world in military spending by a wide margin; and that it has spent $5 billion to aid the neo-Nazis in an overthrow by force and violence in The Ukraine; it is hard to disagree with Roberts when he asserts "Washington has no intention of allowing the crisis in Ukraine to be resolved."
#

[American Patriot]

10 Signs We Are Headed Into World War III

Andrew Handley March 6, 2014

When confusion and misinformation get together in the dark, paranoia is born. Fears of war, violence, and oppression fester and grow in the minds of the populace pushing everything but a misguided assurance of certain doom into the shadows. Out of this cramped and huddled mindset we get the bastardized half-brother of critical thinking: conspiracy theories.
Claiming that World War III is just over the horizon is as crazy as it gets, but the state of the world is showing some eerie similarities to the pre–World War II global picture. And history is a creature of habit.
10 An Unexpected Invasion


Photo credit: Voice of America
On February 27, 2014, Russian soldiers strapped on their marching boots and took over several airports in Crimea. As this is being written, roughly 6,000 Russian troops are moving across the Crimean peninsula and forcibly taking operational control of military bases, communications centers, and government buildings.
This is an invasion that has been a long time in the making, and it’s certainly not the first time Russia has made power plays in the Ukraine. Ever since 1783, Ukraine and Russia (for a time the Soviet Union) have played hot potato with Crimea, leaving a bubbling brew of split nationalism struggling to coexist on the little peninsula.
But the arrival of Russian troops is just the most recent step in a tumultuous few weeks for Ukraine. The country has seen its Russia-sympathizing president, Viktor Yanukovych, become a fugitive, a Russian citizen become the Crimean city of Sevastopol’s mayor, and an emergency meeting of Crimea’s parliament elect Sergey Aksyonov as the new Prime Minister of Crimea—at gunpoint. Aksyonov has declared that he will follow orders from the ousted Yanukovych, who is currently seeking refuge in Russia. The country’s politics are in tatters.
9 The Ukrainian Conflict Is Reaching A Boiling Point


Photo credit: John Jazwiec
Ukrainian nationalists are calling Putin’s invasion an act of war; Russians in Ukraine are calling it an act of salvation. Riots are flaring up all across the country as the two dominant political forces come to a head. This video shows two men being beaten by a pro-Russian mob in Kharkiv, the USSR’s Bolshevik-run capital leading up to World War II—and that’s where Putin’s army looks headed next.
You can get a pretty clear view of the political alliances of Ukraine with the above map, which shows the results of the 2010 election. Blue represents areas that supported Viktor Yanukovych, so you can consider those regions comparatively pro-Russian. The purple areas voted for an opposing candidate, Yulia Tymoshenko. The darker the color, the stronger the support. Kharkiv and Donetsk are firmly in the blue, and represent two major Ukrainian cities with a strong industrial infrastructure—and both are historically Russian.
This is a group of very assertive, very nationalistic people at arms over the one issue that holds paramount importance: heritage. And historically, gray areas are reserved for the losers; it’s the inflexible, dyed-in-the-wool believers in a cause who triumph in a conflict. Russia sees this as good news, picturing much support from the country they’re invading. As one Ukrainian bitterly put it, “No one asked us. We are like puppets for them. We have one Tsar and one god—Putin.”
8 Russia’s License For Aggression


Photo credit: The Presidential Press and Information Office
Though the UN, NATO, and the US have all gone on high alert, the Crimean invasion isn’t an act of aggression against the whole world. It’s a move to make parts of Ukraine decisively Russian, both culturally and politically. Obama initially warned that there would be “costs” to this invasion, but he won’t back it up—he can’t, not without a game of nuclear Russian roulette, which nobody wants.
The problem isn’t that America and the UN will start tossing bombs into Russia; the problem is that Putin knows they won’t. This is a man who once said that the fall of the Soviet Union was the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century,” a viewpoint which harkens to the days of Stalin’s Great Purge and Khrushchev’s missile diplomacy with Cuba.
And Putin’s already on round two. In 2008, when Putin was still Prime Minister, Russia and Georgia entered a five-day conflict that culminated in Russian bombs falling on the Georgian capital. Humanitarian groups around the world cried out, governments issued strict warnings for Russia to fall back, and nobody lifted an actual finger to stop it. At the end of it all, Russia calmly strolled back home and declared that Georgia had been “sufficiently punished.” Each time this happens, Russia becomes more assured that the warnings of the rest of the world are just that—words, empty and hollow.
The situation in Ukraine may not be a match that’s going to ignite the fires of World War III, but it’s a nod to a superpower that they have a free license to do what they want. And if you give a mouse a cookie . . .
7 The Senkaku Island Dispute


Photo credit: Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism
Russia’s not the only country setting the stage for World War III. As is the case with most important things, World War II didn’t suddenly flash into existence; it edged its way into the world consciousness one little bit at a time, like a slowly rusting bicycle, until war was officially declared. While it’s easy to put the conflict into the simplest terms, a lot of factors combined to make up what we now view as one war.
The years leading up to the war held a lot of indicators that, in hindsight, revealed aggressive countries testing the waters of what they could get away with. Japan, Italy, and Germany were all involved in minor conflicts that the League of Nations couldn’t stop, such as Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 and Japan’s chemical-infused invasion of China in 1937.
These days, China is reversing the balance by threatening an invasion of its own. The territory in question is a group of rocks known as the Senkaku islands, which are located in the East China Sea. The problem, of course, is that both China and Japan feel that the islands belong to them, and whoever controls the islands also controls shipping lanes, fishing waters, and a potential oil field.
6 A Third Sino-Japanese War In The Making


China hasn’t been the nicest neighbor recently. In November 2013, China startled the world by announcing a newly configured air defense zone in the East China Sea—a zone that they and they alone would control, to the point of shooting down aircraft that wandered into it. But, in addition to Japan, other regions originally had claim to that airspace, including Taiwan and South Korea.
Whether or not China was planning an invasion at that point, the Senkaku islands fall inside their “newly acquired” airspace, and now they’re threatening to forcefully move Japan out of the area. Tensions have been building in the Pacific Rim for a while now, and if military action puts too much pressure on the skeleton of their current political disputes, bones could break.
And unlike the first two Sino-Japanese wars, this conflict could involve other countries in the region. South Korea quietly expanded their own airspace in December 2013, pushing back into territory that China had already claimed. Combined with both China and Japan aggressively rearming themselves in recent years, this territorial dispute has the potential to explode.


5 America Is Legally Bound To Protect South Pacific Countries


Photo credit: Gary Prill
A war only becomes a World War when the US gets involved. Unlike their official policy of stern warnings and disapproving looks in response to Russia, the White House has publicly and unwaveringly declared that it will back Japan against any acts of aggression by China.
With about 50 percent of its Naval force stationed in the Pacific, the US will also be in a position to help the Philippines if China continues pressing to the south. They’re yet another country that has been affected by the airspace changes, and the US is legally bound to protect the Philippines based on the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty.
This treaty doesn’t even require anything as outright as a full-scale land invasion. The Philippines owns disputed islands within China’s new airspace in the South China Sea (much like Japan claims to own the Senkaku islands). If China makes a move on any of those, the US Navy has to retaliate on their behalf, or they’ll break the conditions of the treaty.
4 Unlikely Alliances


Photo credit: China News
But beneath it all, what do China’s problems and Russia’s problems have to do with each other?
Although they initially ended up on opposite sides of the conflict, Germany and the USSR went into World War II with a non-aggression pact, which lasted two years until Hitler ripped it up and sent Nazis onto Soviet ice.
With perhaps some similarities to that historic pact, China and Ukraine signed a nuclear security pact in December 2013. The conditions: China won’t use any nuclear weapons against Ukraine, and if Ukraine is ever attacked by a nuclear force—or “threatened by such aggression“—China will provide Ukraine with security guarantees.
Why would China want to create such a pact with a country 5,800 kilometers (3,600 mi) away? And more importantly, with which government is China going to honor the pact? The past two months have seen a see-saw of political parties in control of Ukraine, but it’s likely that China’s involvement will be dependent on Yanukovych’s politics, which are decidedly pro-Russian. He’s the one who signed the pact. China says its relationship with Russia is warmer than ever, with China’s People Daily describing it as “one of the most active power relationships [in the world].”
It’s been speculated that Russia is hoping to draw a Western attack onto Ukraine, so that China’s entry to back Ukraine will cement the alliance between China and Russia. That idea reeks of conspiracy theory. But with Russia’s recent agreement to supply $270 billion in oil supplies to China, and with the majority of Russia’s pipelines running through Ukraine, China would want to protect its own interests. Either way, the enemy of an enemy is always a friend, and US-Russian relations are on very shaky ground.
3 Iran Is Itching For War


Photo credit: Nisseth
While tension rises on the Eastern European front and Southeast Asia is mired in an explosive territorial dispute, rumors of war are also being whispered in the Middle East—specifically, Iran. But is Iran any real threat? Depending on the spin, it’s easy to think so.
In January 2014, Iran dispatched a fleet of ships toward US national waters. The Senate has decided that unless military action is taken, Iran’s nuclear development will continue unchecked. And on February 12, 2014, Iran’s military chief answered that claim by declaring the country’s willingness to go toe-to-toe with American forces, on land or at sea.
It sounds like a crisis in the making, but it’s not as bad as it seems. Those “warships” were a rusty frigate and a supply boat, the White House in no way backs the Senate’s bill, and while Iranian general Hassan Firouzabadi did threaten the US and the “Zionist regime” (Israel), it’s worth remembering that they’ve done so plenty of times in the past.
Another point of contention is Iran’s military force. Including paramilitaries, Iran states that they have 13.6 million people who can pick up a weapon at a moment’s notice. While that number is probably exaggerated, it doesn’t matter much anyway—World War III, if it happens, will be mostly an aerial war dependent more on long-range technologies than close-quarters combat. And that, surprisingly, is an example of why not to count Iran out of the picture. They have an air force of 30,000 men with several hundred aircraft, along with cruise missiles with a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,240 mi). That’s plenty of range to hit US bases in the Gulf.
But most importantly, continued attention on Iran, Syria, and other Middle Eastern countries is spreading the West’s foreign resources a little too thin, especially now that Russia won’t be any help in that region.
2 North Korea Is A Wild Card


North Korea tends to get relegated to the back row in discussions on world powers. They’re potentially dangerous, sure, but it’s a short-range type of danger, similar to the way you can still skip away from a mugger with a knife. But turn your back for too long, and that mugger can sneak up and give you some scars.
North Korea is still firing missiles in South Korea’s direction for no good reason. The most recent launch was March 2, 2014; they fired more the week before that. With a range of about 500 kilometers (300 mi), the missiles won’t reach far—just to, say, Japan. Or China. Or South Korea, or Russia. And since they’re nestled right in the center of three of the biggest threats to peace at this time, they could—purposely or not—stir up something bigger than themselves, like dropping a starved weasel into a den of sleeping bears.
Most frightening of all, North Korea is building a nuclear arsenal. It’s unlikely that they’ll ever lead with a nuclear attack, but if there’s enough chaos going on around them, it’s not impossible that they’ll try to slip one into the mix.
1 A Global Recession


Photo credit: Watchdog Wire
World War I and World War II were very different from each other, but they had one striking similarity. Prior to each war, economic recessions hit several of the countries involved. World War II famously brought most of the world’s economies back from the Great Depression, and World War I helped the US recover from a two-year recession that had already slowed trade by 20 percent. Correlation doesn’t imply causation, but it’s worth noting which economies recovered earlier than others, which may have had a huge impact on the way things turned out.
By 1933, Japan had taken moves to devalue its currency, which led to increased exports and a resulting growth in their economy. They pumped the extra money into weapons and munitions, which gave them a decided military advantage in the years leading up to the war. Germany, on the other hand, entirely crashed, which made the Nazi and Communist parties take similar steps and earn overwhelming support among the populace.
We’re seeing some similarities today. While analysts are predicting yet another economic meltdown for Western countries, countries like Iran and Russia are looking to band together to boost their economies. Among other effects, that could lead to a second unit on Iran’s nuclear plant; Germany’s massive internal spending in the 1930s pulled it out of the Depression faster than America or the rest of Europe. And the global recession hit Russia less than much of the rest of the world, due in part to its exports of a quarter of the natural gas used by the entire European continent
And then there’s China. The US government is close to $17 trillion in debt, and China owns seven percent of that, or about $1.19 trillion. China recently flew past Japan to become the world’s second largest economy, and if it keeps growing at this rate, its GDP is going to match America’s in about eight years. The risk is if China decides to dump the US debt. China would take a financial loss, but it could be a crippling blow to the US economy—and much of the world, since the US dollar is held in reserve by most foreign governments.
If China and the US do come to blows over the South China Sea, the US could eradicate the debt and pump the extra revenue into military spending—the exact same monetary flow that happened in World War II, only this time the guns are bigger.
But don’t worry, it won’t happen. Probably.

[American Patriot]

Russian Foreign Minister Demands Obama Reply to Claim U.S. Mercenaries in Ukraine

Image | Posted on May 14, 2014 by tomfernandez28

Academi denies its mercs are helping junta in Kyiv eliminate opposition
Kurt Nimmo
********.com
May 14, 2014
Earlier this week, Academi, the mercenary successor to Blackwater, told the German newspaper Zeit Online it does not have personnel on the ground in Ukraine assisting the junta in its effort to roll back opposition.
Bild am Sonntag, the largest-selling Sunday newspaper in Germany, reported last Sunday the presence of 400 mercenaries from the company were operating in Ukraine. The report followed an announcement in early May that the CIA and FBI are in the country assisting the regime.
Former CNN Intelligence Correspondent and current Vice President at Academi, Suzanne Kelly, told the German news website her company does not have personnel in Ukraine and does not plan to send any. She characterized media reports linking Academi to Blackwater as “incredibly irresponsible.”
Academi is in fact linked to Backwater and its successor, XE Services. In December, 2001 The Washington Post ran a story with the headline “Ex-Blackwater firm gets a name change, again.”
Kelly’s less than forthright remark about the company also casts doubt on the assertion the mercenary firm is not assisting the coup government in Kyiv.
On Wednesday the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, said Russia has “very strong” suspicions about Academi inside Ukraine. Lavrov and the Russian government are demanding a response from the Obama administration on the issue.
“I sent a message from ambassador to Washington asking him to respond to these assertions from the German media,” he during an interview with Bloomberg News, according to The Hill. “Rumors to this effect were spread even before and [Secretary of State] John Kerry rejected them. Now they popped up again, and we’d like to see whether this is true or not.”
This article was posted: Wednesday, May 14, 2014 at 10:45 am

[American Patriot]

China building airstrip on reef in Philippine waters

By Marlon Ramos, Tarra Quismundo
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs Spokesman Charles Jose delivers a statement about the Philippine protest against China’s reclamation of land in a disputed reef in the South China Sea as he faces the media at the Philippine Foreign Affairs headquarters in suburban Pasay City on Wednesday, May 14, 2014. The Philippines has protested China’s reclamation of land in a disputed reef in the South China Sea that can be used to build an airstrip or an offshore military base in the increasingly volatile region, the country’s top diplomat and other officials said. AP Photo/Aaron Favila

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippines has protested China’s reclamation of land on a reef in the West Philippine Sea that can be used to build an airstrip or an offshore military base, in yet another provocative move by Beijing in the disputed waters, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said on Wednesday.
President Aquino raised the Chinese activity in Philippine waters at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit in Burma (Myanmar) on Sunday, the DFA said in a statement.
“The Philippines protested the Chinese reclamation on Mabini Reef (international name: Johnson South Reef). The Chinese side rejected the protest,” the DFA said.
Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said the Philippines filed the protest on April 4, but Beijing rejected it on grounds that the reef was part of Chinese territory.
Asked if China was building an airstrip on the reef, Del Rosario said, “That’s one possibility.”
The Department of National Defense (DND) also reported the Chinese activity on Mabini Reef on Wednesday and demanded that Beijing put a stop to it.
“This activity contravenes the spirit of the [Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea] and is a security concern of all in the region,” DND spokesman Paul Galvez said, referring to the nonaggression and keeping of the status quo agreement that Asean and China signed in 2002.
“These provocative acts, which they should immediately stop, further disturb the fabric of regional peace and stability,” Galvez said.
Discovered 6 months ago
Galvez said Philippine surveillance planes first detected China’s reclamation activity six months ago.
Philippine aircraft searching for a missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner in March also spotted the continuing reclamation on the reef by at least one Chinese ship backed by smaller vessels.
“We can confirm that there is an ongoing reclamation or earth-moving activities [there],” Galvez said.
“Is that a possible airfield? We cannot speculate at this point,” he said.
“It has been getting bigger and bigger,” he added.
30-ha landmass
The government estimates that the reclamation has turned the submerged reef and a sandbar into a 30-hectare landmass that transformed the submerged coral outcrop into an islet, The Associated Press reported, quoting an unnamed government official.
The discovery of the reclamation, and the possibility of China building an airstrip on the reef, would likely raise alarm among rival claimant countries because it would bolster Beijing’s naval and air force mobility in a South China Sea region far from the Chinese mainland.
Mabini Reef, which the Chinese call Chigua Reef, is 300 kilometers away from Palawan province, well within the Philippines’ 370-km exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
Also claimed by Vietnam
Vietnam is also claiming Mabini Reef, but Beijing seized the reef and other coral outcrops in the area from Hanoi after a deadly naval skirmish in 1988.
There was no immediate comment from the Chinese Embassy in Manila on Wednesday.
‘Renovation’
Last week, the Chinese press played down the reef reclamation and construction.
Quoting an unnamed source described as close to the construction, the Global Times reported China was merely “renovating the living facilities for troops stationed on the reef.”
In the statement issued Wednesday, the DFA said the Philippines asked the United Nations to “clarify Mabini Reef’s physical character” in its “memorial,” or brief, submitted to the United Nations Tribunal for the Convention on the Law of the Sea on March 30, which details the merits of its case against China in their territorial dispute in the West Philippine Sea.
The West Philippine Sea is part of the South China Sea within the Philippines’ EEZ, but China claims 90 percent of the 3.5-million square-kilometer South China Sea, including waters close to its neighbors’ shores.
Beijing has refused to take part in the arbitration, the case for which Manila filed in January last year in a bid to stop Chinese incursions into the West Philippine Sea.
Rivals for territory
The Philippines has also asked the arbitral court to nullify China’s claim over almost the whole South China Sea.
That extensive claim has set China against not only Vietnam and the Philippines, but also against Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan, which claim parts of the sea that are crisscrossed by sea-lanes where a third of annual cargo passes and where islands, islets, reefs and shoal are believed to be sitting on vast energy and mineral reserves.
China continues to assert “indisputable sovereignty” over the waters and has accused other claimant nations, including the Philippines and Vietnam, of undertaking provocative actions pending resolution of the dispute.
Tensions in the South China Sea have flared up recently following the Philippines’ arrest of Chinese fishermen caught poaching sea turtles at Hasa-Hasa Shoal (Half Moon Shoal), 93 km off Palawan, and China moving a deepwater drilling rig near the Paracel Islands in the East Sea, within Vietnam’s EEZ, sparking confrontations between dozens of Chinese and Vietnamese ships.
‘Provocative’ actions
Disturbed by confrontations in the East Sea, US Secretary of State John Kerry phoned Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Tuesday and told him China’s installation of an oil rig and the deployment of vessels in the disputed waters were “provocative.”
The Chinese side responded by saying that words and actions by the United States had “emboldened” other claimants to take provocative actions in the sea.
“It is true that provocative actions have been seen in the South China Sea recently. But they are not taken by China. It is nothing but the wrong words and actions made by the US side on maritime issues that have emboldened some countries to take provocative actions,” Hua said in a press conference in Beijing on Tuesday.
Security analysts believe moving the drilling rig into the East Sea is China’s response to US President Barack Obama’s four-nation tour of Asia in April and his assurance to allies Japan and the Philippines that the United States would defend them if they were attacked.—With reports from AFP and AP
RELATED STORIES
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Philippines to raise China dispute at Asean summit
Read more: http://globalnation.inquirer.net/104...#ixzz31ifX2oJJ

[American Patriot]

France’s Sale of 2 Ships to Russians Is Ill-Advised, U.S. Warns

Posted by aurelius77 on May 15, 2014

WASHINGTON — In a closed-door meeting in February 2010, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates urged his French counterpart not to proceed with the sale of two amphibious assault ships to Russia because it “would send the wrong message to Russia and to our allies in Central and East Europe.”
The French official, Hervé Morin, acknowledged that each of the ships — so-called Mistral-class vessels built for the French Navy to carry troops, landing craft, and helicopters — was “indeed a warship for power projection,” according to a confidential diplomatic cable on the meeting, which was made public by WikiLeaks. But Mr. Morin “asked rhetorically how we can tell Russia we desire partnership but then not trust them,” the cable added.
With Russia’s annexation of Crimea and some 40,000 Russian troops deployed near Ukraine, Western officials are no longer putting their trust in Russia’s intentions. But despite American objections, the sale is still on track, and the first ship is scheduled for delivery late this year.
…
If they are delivered, the ships would augment the Russian military’s capabilities against the very nations that now appear to be most vulnerable to the Kremlin’s pressure — namely the Black Sea states of Ukraine and Georgia and the Baltic states that belong to NATO.
“The technology and capability represented by the Mistral should not be passed to a Russian Federation that continues to threaten its neighbors,” said James G. Stavridis, the retired admiral who served as NATO’s top commander from 2009 to 2013.
“Russia has nothing like it, and without French help could not build it anytime soon,” said Stephen J. Blank, an expert on the Russian military at the American Foreign Policy Council.
“Since helicopters can also be armed with missiles, it can be a platform for a heliborne missile attack as well as what we in the States call an air assault or heliborne landings or amphibious landings,” Mr. Blank added.
…
Georgia, whose breakaway regions were occupied by Russian troops in 2008, was worried by the potential sale, especially after a Russian naval commander was quoted as saying Russia’s Black Sea Fleet could have carried out its mission during that conflict “in 40 minutes” if it had possessed a ship like the Mistral.

Full article: France’s Sale of 2 Ships to Russians Is Ill-Advised, U.S. Warns (NY Times)

[American Patriot]

Posted today

` Five Days of War Games Commence in Black Sea ‘

#AceWorldNews – - ROMANIA – May 15 – Some 1,600 Romanian sailors have started five days of war games in the Black Sea amid heightened tensions in neighbouring Ukraine.


Romania’s Defence Ministry said in a statement on Monday that the war games code-named “Vector 2014”, will run through Friday in the Black Sea.


It said the drills are part of long-planned and regular naval exercises.


#ANS2014

[American Patriot]

French Ship Could Spy On Communications In Black Sea

May 15, 2014 · by Fortuna's Corner · in CIA, DIA, espionage, spying, foreign policy, Intelligence Community, military history, national security, NATO, NSA, Russia, Special Operations, U.S. Cyber Command, Ukraine, US Military · 1 Comment



French Ship Could Spy on Communications in Black Sea
FS Dupuy de Lome
© wikipedia.org


15:30 15/05/2014


VARNA, May 15 (RIA Novosti) – The French intelligence ship FS Dupuy de Lome has entered the waters off Bulgaria’s port city Varna a day after its return to the Black Sea, a military source told RIA Novosti Thursday.


“The French intelligence ship is now stationed in the western Black Sea, 30 miles away from the port of Varna,” the source said.


The intelligence vessel is designed for radar monitoring, as well as the collection of signals and communications behind enemy lines. It can also intercept phone calls and e-mails.


Under the Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits, ships belonging to countries that do not border the Black Sea are not allowed to stay in the area for more than 21 days.


The agreement was earlier breached by the frigate USS Taylor, which stayed at a Turkish port 11 days over its limit. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that Turkey, a NATO member, had failed to inform Moscow about the violation.

The Dupuy de Lome was earlier deployed to the Black Sea from April 11 to April 30, after the standoff between Moscow and Kiev led to the Crimean peninsula’s secession from Ukraine and reunification with Russia.

[American Patriot]

Russia may have won a battle as propaganda war comes to Germany’s capital

Posted on May 16, 2014 by News • Tagged German intelligence, russia • Leave a comment

By Matthew Schofield
BERLIN — In eastern Ukraine, among pro-Russian separatists, the notion that elite American fighters are prowling the backroads and slag heaps of their region is oft repeated. After first surfacing in March, the rumors sounded like the sort of paranoid fantasies created in a war zone where anti-Americanism is rampant.But now the rumors are being repeated in Germany’s capital _ and resonating. That alone may count as a victory for Russian propagandists, even if there are no American mercenaries. The White House says there are not.Bild am Sonntag, a tabloid-like newspaper that occasionally breaks major stories on the German government, is reporting that German intelligence has told Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office that it had unconfirmed reports that 400 Americans appear to be aiding the interim Ukrainian government in its fight against pro-Russian separatists. According to Bild, the German intelligence agency cited U.S. intelligence officials as its source.The report, which appeared Sunday, has since been repeated by nearly every German news outlet. The allegation that the information was presented to the chancellor’s office in a weekly briefing in April lends it gravitas. That such reports in Bild on more than one occasion have proved true enhances its credibility. The chancellor’s office and the German intelligence service have declined to either confirm or deny, a development that leaves an atmosphere of doubt in a country where tensions are rife about just how angry Germany should be at Russia’s actions in Ukraine _ fueled in no small part by German reliance on Russian natural gas and oil and the extensive business ties between the two nations.

“We’ve told Bild and other outlets that these stories are nonsense,” Caitlin Hayden, the national security spokeswoman for the White House, said Wednesday. “The company in question has been on record denying it for almost two months.”The Russians couldn’t hope for more.


Ukrainian experts and officials note that Russia has been waging a decade-long propaganda war to sour Ukrainians on the government in Kiev, and this report fits right in to Russia’s hopes to reduce international pressure on it. Russia has been widely accused of funding, supporting and supplying officers to the pro-Russia separatists in the Donetsk Oblast, or region, of eastern Ukraine. To be able to show that the United States, even in the form of mercenaries and not official military personnel, are active on behalf of Kiev would to many further justify Russian actions.According to Bild, the German intelligence agency Bundesnachrichtendienst, or BND, said the mercenaries were hired from Academi, an international security firm that rose from the scandal-ridden ashes of Blackwater, the now defunct company that made headlines worldwide for its allegedly wild ways in Iraq, where its contractors were accused, among other things, of killing 17 Iraqi civilians in a shooting spree in Baghdad’s Nisouri Square.Bild reported that the BND said that the 400 Academi “elite” soldiers are thought to have been part of operations against pro-Russia separatists around Slovyansk, the eastern Ukrainian city that has been the scene of fierce fighting between separatists and Ukrainian security forces.Academi officials could not be reached for comment, but in March when the rumors first began circulating they posted an official denial on their website. At that time, the international and Ukrainian media focus was on Crimea, which had been occupied by Russian military forces in late February and had just voted in a questionable referendum to secede from Ukraine and join Russia.“Some irresponsible bloggers and an online reporter have recently posted rumors that ACADEMI employees (operating under the name of Blackwater) are present in Ukraine,” the statement said. “They are not and ACADEMI has no relationship with any entity named Blackwater or with the former owner of Blackwater, Erik Prince. Such unfounded statements combined with the lack of factual reporting to support them and the lack of context about the company, are nothing more than sensationalistic efforts to create hysteria and headlines in times of genuine crisis.”An American mercenary force of 400 would be a significant factor in fighting in the region. Ukrainian estimates place as many as 800 pro-Russia separatist fighters in Slovyansk, and no more than several thousands in the region. The pro-Russia fighters are described as a collection of regional and Russian mercenaries, allegedly led by Russian spetsnaz, or special forces.

There are an estimated 15,000 Ukrainian military in the east of the country, though military experts note that they are primarily focused on guarding the border with Russia.

Serhiy Zhurets, the director of the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies, a research center in Kiev, noted that the Ukrainian constitution prohibits the military from engaging in the internal conflict. Instead, the fighting has fallen to police and special forces of Ukraine’s intelligence service. The German report comes against steady claims by separatist fighters that they’ve heard American voices on Ukrainian military radios. The rumors are repeated as evidence that the government in Kiev is nothing more than a Western puppet regime. Their reasoning is that American warriors are trying to suppress the pro-Russia movement, just as they toppled the pro-Russian government of President Viktor Yanukovych by running the protests at Maidan, or Independence Square, in Kiev.The Russian government news agency Ria Novosti reported on April 7 that elite Academi warriors were wearing Ukrainian Sokol (special forces) and police uniforms and engaged in fighting.Suddeutsche Zeitung columnist Hubert Wetzel on Wednesday described the rumors as potentially devastating for the Western cause in Ukraine. His column made a point of noting that even the report of the report to the chancellor’s office was still a rumor. But he noted that if confirmed, it would damage the Western claim to the moral high ground in this conflict.

“Nothing would rock the credibility of Europeans and Americans more than a confirmation of the news that American mercenaries are working for the Ukrainian government. For Moscow this would be a priceless propaganda victory where the West would appear morally naked. As naked as Moscow is now.”

SOURCE