by Liu zhen Source: South China Morning Post

“China also learned from the Gulf War that the US had established its dominance and hegemony through military might. The US could beat you whenever they want to”

Monday marks the 30th anniversary of Operation Desert Storm, when American-led coalition forces invaded Iraq. The Gulf War sparked 30 years of chaos and turmoil in the once powerful Middle Eastern country but also served as a rude awakening for China’s military leaders.

With the technology and firepower on show during the conflict – precision bombing, satellite guidance, missile interception, air-to-surface strike to eliminate tanks, electronic warfare, one-way transparency on the battlefield, stealth bombers – the Gulf War was a “psychological nuclear attack” on China, observers say.

The event helped to kick start China’s military modernisation and led to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) narrowing the gap with the US military so much that it is now considered a “strategic threat”.

Desert Storm, which lasted six weeks, marked the dawn of a warfare revolution, showed the backwardness of the PLA at that time and sparked anxiety regarding national security,experts say.

“It showed China how a war should be fought and forced the Chinese military to skip the mechanised stage and jump straight to develop information technologies,” said Ni Lexiong, a Shanghai-based military expert.

“From military theories to the building of the army, to the weapons and equipment, to the relevant technologies, we realised it was all decades behind the Americans.”

Antony Wong Tong, a Macau-based military analyst, said old PLA doctrines like “People’s war” were proven outdated by the Gulf War, and showed that after June 4, 1989 – the date of the bloody massacre in Tiananmen Square – China had once again become an imaginary enemy of the US, which made the problem more imminent for Beijing.

“Since the 1990s the PLA has thoroughly switched to the path of professionalisation and modernisation,” he said.

The year 1991 saw the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, and the military and political pressure on China dramatically increased. Aware of its own vulnerability and weakness, China adopted a “keeping a low profile and biding time” approach to diplomacy, while putting all of its effort into development.

In the aftershock of the Gulf War, then Chinese leader Jiang Zemin began to promote the idea that the PLA should focus on building “modern regional warfare capabilities under hi-tech conditions”, “complete the dual historical tasks of mechanisation and informationisation” and “achieve the modernisation of the army by leaps forward”, according to Tang Zhichao, who specialises in Middle East studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

According to Hong Kong-based military commentator Song Zhongping, China used the hi-tech American weapons it had seen in the war – like precision missiles, missile defence systems and stealth warplanes – as a guidebook for its development. Tactics like joint operations between different forces and the organisation and technologies needed to realise them were also given great attention.

Retired PLA major general Jin Yinan spoke of the impact the war had had in his memoir.

“At one point, we translated a lot of the US military’s operational regulations and military reports, and began to build the army by copying their models and standards.”

Under Jiang, the PLA slashed 700,000 troops in the 1990s and 2000s. In 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping cut a further 300,000 and initiated massive restructuring and a reform of the command chain.

The military’s budget started rising fast in 1999 with double-digit growth for more than a decade, in line with the soaring Chinese economy. By 2019, China’s annual defence spending was the second-biggest in the world, reaching US$176 billion, compared to America’s US$732 billion. Beijing allocated a budget of US$178.6 billion for 2020.

The Chinese army last year announced the completion of the mechanisation of its Ground Force. But even before then the PLA was ahead of the US in some areas, like shipbuilding, land-based conventional missiles and integrated air defence systems, according to the Pentagon’s 2020 “China Military Power Report”.

The PLA Navy is the world’s second largest after the US by total displacement. It has about 350 ships and submarines, including more than 130 major surface combatants. The US Navy has 293 ships. Moreover, most of China’s best ships were built after 2010 so feature the latest equipment and technologies.

By comparison, in 1991, the PLA Navy was a near-shore defence force whose largest ship was a 3,600-tonne destroyer Type 051.

The PLA Air Force is now the third-largest in the world, with more than 2,500 aircraft and about 2,000 combat aircraft, most of which are third- and fourth-generation warplanes, comparable to Western air forces. China is only the second country in the world to have developed a fifth-generation stealth fighter, the J-20.

In 1991, the best planes in the PLA Air Force were the J-7 – developed from a 1950s’s MiG-21 – and the domestically developed J-8, both of which were second-generation.The US aircraft involved in the Gulf War were mostly fourth-generation F15s, F-16s and F/A-18s, while the military decided Lockheed Martin’s prototype Y-22 would become the world’s first fifth-generation stealth fighter – the F-22.

The PLA Rocket Force has more than 1,250 ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges from 500km (310 miles) to 5,500km, which the US almost did not have due to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The Rocket Force has greatly upgraded and expanded its nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile inventory in the past 30 years and now leads the world in the deployment of hypersonic glide missiles with its DF-17.

“Chinese equipment may not be as good as the Americans in certain specifications, but at least it is of the same generation of development. There is no longer the generational gap there was in the 1990s,” Ni said.

The Gulf War played a very important role in stimulating the progress of China’s military modernisation, Tang said.

Although China’s state television did not broadcast live reports on Desert Storm, it was still closely watched.

“Like myself, the prediction of most military personnel in China at the beginning of the war was that the United States would repeat the Soviet Union’s failure in Afghanistan,”said Liu Dingping, an officer with the PLA Second Artillery Command (now the Rocket Force) wrote in a newspaper article at the time. “But … we were wrong.”

The US-led coalition flew more than 100,000 sorties and dropped 88,500 tonnes of bombs, which stripped Iraq of its defences. The fact it took the coalition just 42 days – including just 100 hours on the ground – to wipe out what was at the time the world’s fourth-largest army was telling, experts say.

“If it was us being attacked by the Americans at that time, the result might not have been any better,” said Ni, who was a 36-year-old military history researcher in 1991.

Many of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s soldiers were veterans of the Iran-Iraq War and as well as Chinese weapons – Type 69 tanks, Type 63 armoured personnel carriers and J-7 fighters – were armed with advanced Soviet T-72 tanks and MiG-25, MiG-29 fighters.

But the US had the world’s first operational stealth warplane – the F-117, and fourth-generation fighters, the F-15, F-16 and F/A-18, as the backbone of its air campaign. Moreover, the squadrons of reconnaissance, surveillance, electronic-warfare, aerial refuelling tanker aircraft were total strangers to the Chinese.

Wong said the PLA had never imagined that the coalition would be able to win with almost nothing but air power.

“It was as shocking as a psychological atomic bomb on the Chinese military, who still believed in Soviet-style tactics from the 1960s and 1970s,” he said.

Wang Yiwei, a professor of international relations at Renmin University of China in Beijing, said the conflict reminded the Chinese of the rule of the jungle: “fall behind and you will be beaten”.

“China also learned from the Gulf War that the US had established its dominance and hegemony through military might. The US could beat you whenever they want to,” he said.

The PLA at that time also realised it had fallen behind its number one imaginary enemy – Taiwan – in terms of advanced technology and weaponry. The Taiwanese independence movement had been growing since then, and especially after the Strait Crises in 1995 and 1996, when the PLA stepped back when two US aircraft carrier strike groups intervened, Song said.

“So given the constant accumulation of external and internal demands, coupled with the model effect of the Gulf War, the PLA were deeply aware of the importance of strengthening its ability and improving its readiness for war,” he said.

by Thierry Meyssan
The Iranian President, Sheik Hassan Rohaini, is a longstanding partner of Israel. He intends to restore Iran to the role of “regional gendarme” that it had during the Pahlavi dynasty.

A very strong antagonism opposes the government of Sheikh Hassan Rohani to the Revolutionary Guards. The latter are not placed under his orders, but depend directly on the Supreme Guide, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

President Rohani’s project: capitalism and regional imperialism

Sheikh Rohani is a member of the Shiite clergy, like Ayatollah Khamenei, but not the Revolutionary Guards, who are soldiers.

The Guardians of the Revolution are followers of Imam Rouhollah Khomeiny. They intend to export his anti-imperialist revolution and liberate the world from the Anglo-Saxon empire (USA + UK + Israel) from which their country has suffered so much. They have no connection with the regular Iranian army, which depends on the President of the Islamic Republic and intends only to defend the country.

Sheikh Rohani was a member of parliament during the long war that Iraq declared on behalf of the United States. He put pressure on Washington to obtain the release of US hostages in Lebanon in exchange for US weapons. He was later contacted by Israel to powerfully arm his country. It was he who brought his mentor, the Speaker of Parliament, Hodjatoleslam Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, into the game. Together, they organised the Iran-Contra arms traffic which brought misfortune to the Nicaraguan revolutionaries and fortune to the already very rich Rafsanjani.

Much later, he was chosen by Ayatollah Khamenei to succeed President Ahmadinejad in a new secret negotiation with the United States in Oman. During this election campaign, he presented himself as a supporter of nascent financial capitalism and declared that Iran should stop funding foreign revolutionaries, even if they were Shiite like the Lebanese Hezbollah. In doing so, he was giving pledges to the US and Israel.

Once elected, he immediately negotiated with Washington, in accordance with the instructions of the guide, Ayatollah Khamenei. His ambition was to regain the role of “regional policeman” that the Anglo-Saxon empire had attributed to Shah Reza Pahlevi (then to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, then again to Saudi Arabia). As this objective is in total contradiction with the legacy of Imam Khomeini, the two states presented these negotiations as aiming to put an end to the Iranian nuclear programme. They involved the other permanent members of the Security Council and Germany in meetings in Geneva which soon led to a nuclear agreement (2013). China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and Russia were not surprised because they all knew that Iran had abandoned all research into weapons of mass destruction since 1988. A year’s break was then used to continue bilateral negotiations between Tehran and Washington. It was during this period that Hassan Rohani discreetly withdrew his ambassador and credits from Syria. Only the Guardians of the Revolution remained there in the face of NATO and the jihadists. Finally, the agreement that had been negotiated with the 5+1 was signed in public, on July 14, 2015, in Vienna.

In passing, Sheikh Rohani negotiated an agreement with Austria to export Iranian gas to Europe to the detriment of Russia. But this agreement could never be concretised.

It was only during his second presidential election campaign, in 2017, that Hassan Rohani revealed his project: to re-establish the Savafid empire. He still acted cautiously since he had it revealed by a publication of his think-tank, but continued to express himself using the rhetoric of Imam Khomeini. The Safavid empire was built around the Shiite religion. Greater Iran” would include Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Azerbaijan, under the authority of the leader of the Revolution.

The consequences of President Rohani’s project

This text was immediately translated into Arabic by Anis Naccache. It shook up the wider Middle East. Indeed, while Azerbaijan is almost unanimously Shiite, the other designated states are not.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah has been deeply divided between its Secretary General, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who defended a Lebanese nationalist line, and his deputy, Sheikh Naïm Qassem, who on the contrary loudly applauded Sheikh Rohani.
In Syria, where the Shiites are in the minority, President Bashar el-Assad (himself Shiite, but profoundly secular) held back his anger and pretended to ignore everything.
In Iraq, where the Shiites are in the majority, but initially nationalists, most of them – including Moqtada el-Sadr – have turned to Sunni Saudi Arabia.
In Iran, General Qassem Soleimani of the Revolutionary Guards became the main rival of President Rohani.
In Azerbaijan, a country which is both Shiite and Turkish-speaking, the ruling class turned to Turkey, with which it finally launched the war against Armenia.

It was in this context that President Donald Trump broke the 5+1 agreement (JCPoA) on nuclear power. Contrary to the West European reading of events, it was not a question for him of destroying the “peaceful” work of his predecessor, President Barack Obama, but of opposing the regional reorganisation implied by the Rohani project: the Levant for Iran and the Caucasus for Turkey. The White House’s only criterion was to prevent new wars requiring the deployment of US troops.

The all-too-visible gap between the lifestyle of the families of the Rohani government members and that of the population caused huge riots at the end of 2017. Former President Ahmadinejad became involved in these riots against both him and now against the leader as well. The repression was terrible. There were a large number of deaths, perhaps a thousand, and former members of the Ahmadinejad cabinet were tried in secret and sentenced to heavy prison terms for unknown reasons.

Wanting to show that Washington would no longer play Sunni against Shiite or Arab against Persian, President Trump ordered the successive assassinations of the two main military leaders of each side: the Sunni Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of Daesh and the Shiite General Qassem Soleimani of the Al-Quds Force.

In doing so, he demonstrated that the United States is still the sole master of the region. He unwittingly favoured Sheikh Rohani’s camp in Iran. The latter spared no effort to denounce “the Great Satan” and accused the head of the Iraqi secret service, Mustafa al-Kazimi, of being an accomplice of the Americans. However, when the latter was appointed Prime Minister in Baghdad a few weeks later, President Rohani was one of the first to congratulate him and congratulate himself.

Sheikh Rohani’s Israeli friends then had General Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a nuclear scientist and companion of General Soleimani, assassinated. The Khomeinist tendency was decapitated.

President Rohani and Israel

President Rohani is ready to abandon Azerbaijan to Turkey if it is given the Levant. He can count on the help of Israel which, contrary to a widespread idea in the West, far from being an enemy, is a long-standing partner.

It is he who was the first Israeli contact in the Iran-Contra affair, as we have already noted.

It is also he who manages half of the Eilat-Askhelon pipeline and its two terminals, indispensable to the Israeli economy. At the end of 2017, the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee of the Knesset repressed any publication on this subject with a sentence of 15 years in prison.

He is still the one who periodically receives Benjamin Netanyahu’s brother, Iddo, a discreet playwright who divides his life between the United States, Israel and Iran, three countries where he has permanent residence.

Sheikh Rohani now hopes that he will be able to carry out his project if Joe Biden is inducted as President of the United States. It will not be necessary to re-establish the bogus nuclear agreement, but just to let Tehran once again become the “policeman of the region”.

Translation
Roger Lagassé

“It has become generally accepted in foreign policy circles that the US and China are competing in a ‘superpower marathon’ that could last a century. However, the most acute part of the competition will last no more than a decade,” says the magazine Foreign Affairs, published by the Council on Foreign Relations. “… The moment of maximum danger will come in a few years.” [. . .]

“If China swallows Taiwan,” writes Foreign Affairs, “it will gain access to world-class technology and acquire an ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier’ projecting military power to the western Pacific, plus the ability to blockade Japan and the Philippines… Taiwan is the axis of power in east Asia: controlled by Taipei, the island is a fortress against Chinese aggression”. [. . .]

“U.S. strategic alliances, meanwhile, might still exist on paper, but most would be dead letters. Washington might retain only two sets of regular partners. The first would include Australia, Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom. These countries are strategically arrayed across the globe, and their militaries and intelligence agencies are already integrated with Washington’s. All but Japan boast growing working-age populations, unlike most other U.S. allies, and thus have the potential tax bases to contribute to U.S. missions. The second group would consist of places such as the Baltic states, the Gulf Arab monarchies, and Taiwan, which share borders with or sit in close proximity to U.S. adversaries. The United States would continue to arm these partners but would no longer plan to defend them. Instead, Washington would essentially use them as buffers to check Chinese, Iranian, and Russian expansion without direct U.S. intervention.

Outside of those partnerships, all of Washington’s alliances and relationships—including NATO and its connections with longtime allies such as South Korea—would be negotiable. The United States would no longer woo countries to participate in multilateral alliances. Instead, other countries would have to bargain on a bilateral basis for U.S. protection and market access. Countries with little to offer would have to find new partners or fend for themselves.” [. . .]

by Scott Ritter

From Syria to Libya to Nagorno-Karabakh, this new method of military offense has been brutally effective. We are witnessing a revolution in the history of warfare, one that is causing panic, particularly in Europe.

In an analysis written for the European Council on Foreign Relations, Gustav Gressel, a senior policy fellow, argues that the extensive (and successful) use of military drones by Azerbaijan in its recent conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh holds “distinct lessons for how well Europe can defend itself.”

Gressel warns that Europe would be doing itself a disservice if it simply dismissed the Nagorno-Karabakh fighting as “a minor war between poor countries.” In this, Gressel is correct – the military defeat inflicted on Armenia by Azerbaijan was not a fluke, but rather a manifestation of the perfection of the art of drone warfare by Baku’s major ally in the fighting, Turkey. Gressel’s conclusion – that “most of the [European Union’s] armies… would do as miserably as the Armenian Army” when faced by such a threat – is spot on.

What happened to the Armenian Army in its short but brutal 44-day war with Azerbaijan goes beyond simply losing a war. It was more about the way Armenia lost and, more specifically, how it lost. What happened over the skies of Nagorno-Karabakh – where Azerbaijan employed a host of Turkish- and Israeli-made drones not only to surveil and target Armenian positions, but shape and dominate the battlefield throughout – can be likened to a revolution in military affairs. One akin to the arrival of tanks, mechanised armoured vehicles, and aircraft in the early 20th century, that eventually led to the demise of horse-mounted cavalry.

It’s not that the Armenian soldiers were not brave, or well-trained and equipped – they were. It was that they were fighting a kind of war which had been overtaken by technology, where no matter how resolute and courageous they were in the face of the enemy, the outcome was preordained – their inevitable death, and the destruction of their equipment; some 2,425 Armenian soldiers lost their lives in the fighting, and 185 T-72 tanks, 90 armored fighting vehicles, 182 artillery pieces, 73 multiple rocket launchers, and 26 surface-to-air missile systems were destroyed.

A new kind of warfare

What happened to Armenia was not an isolated moment in military history, but rather the culmination of a new kind of warfare, centered on the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or drones). Azerbaijan’s major ally in the war against Armenia – Turkey – has been perfecting the art of drone warfare for years, with extensive experience in full-scale modern conflict gained in recent fighting in Syria (February-March 2020) and Libya (May-June 2020.)

Over the course of the past decade, Turkey has taken advantage of arms embargoes imposed by America and others which restricted Ankara’s access to the kind of front-line drones used by the US around the world, to instead build from scratch an indigenous drone-manufacturing base. While Turkey has developed several drones in various configurations, two have stood out in particular – the Anka-S and Bayraktar.

While the popular term for the kind of drone-centric combat carried out by Turkey is “drone swarm,” the reality is that modern drone warfare, when conducted on a large scale, is a deliberate, highly coordinated process which integrates electronic warfare, reconnaissance and surveillance, and weapons delivery. Turkey’s drone war over Syria was managed from the Turkish Second Army Command Tactical Command Center, located some 400km away from the fighting in the city of Malatya in Turkey’s Hatay Province.

It was here that the Turkish drone operators sat, and where they oversaw the operation of an integrated electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) warfare capability designed to jam Syrian and Russia air-defense radars and collect signals of military value (such as cell phone conversations) which were used to target specific locations.

For every $1 in losses suffered by Turkey, Syria lost approximately $5

The major systems used by Turkey in this role are the KORAL jamming system and a specially configured Anka-S drone operating as an airborne intelligence collection platform. The Anka-S also operated as an airborne command and control system, relaying targeting intelligence to orbiting Bayraktar UAVs, which would then acquire the target visually before firing highly precise onboard air-to-surface rockets, destroying the target. When conducted in isolation, an integrated drone strike such as those carried out by Turkey can be deadly effective; when conducted simultaneously with four or more systems in action, each of which is capable of targeting multiple locations, the results are devastating and, from the perspective of those on the receiving end, might be likened to a deadly “swarm.”

The fighting in Syria illustrated another important factor regarding drone warfare – the disparity of costs between the drone and the military assets it can destroy. Turkish Bayraktar and Anka-S UAV’s cost approximately $2.5 million each. Over the course of fighting in Syria’s Idlib province, Turkey lost between six and eight UAVs, for a total replacement cost of around $20 million.

In the first night of fighting in Syria, Turkey claims (and Russia does not dispute) that it destroyed large numbers of heavy equipment belonging to the Syrian Army, including 23 tanks and 23 artillery pieces. Overall, Turkish drones are credited with killing 34 Syrian tanks and 36 artillery systems, along with a significant amount of other combat equipment. If one uses the average cost of a Russian-made tank at around $1.2 million, and an artillery system at around $500,000, the total damage done by Turkey’s drones amounts to some $57.3 million (and this number does not include the other considerable material losses suffered by the Syrian military, which in total could easily match or exceed that number.) From a cost perspective alone, for every $1 in losses suffered by Turkey, the Syrians lost approximately $5.

Turkey was able to take the lessons learned from the fighting in Idlib province and apply them to a different theater of war, in Libya, in May 2020. There, Turkey had sided with the beleaguered forces of the Government of National Accord (GNA), which was mounting what amounted to a last stand around the Libyan capital of Tripoli. The GNA was facing off against the forces of the so-called Libyan National Army (LNA), based out of Benghazi, which had launched a major offensive designed to capture the capital, eliminate the GNA, and take control of all of Libya.

How to capture half a country

The LNA was supported by the several foreign powers, including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Russia (via Wagner Group, a private military contractor.) Turkey’s intervention placed a heavy emphasis on the integrated drone warfare it had perfected in Syria. In Libya, the results were even more lop-sided, with the Turkish-backed GNA able to drive the LNA forces back, capturing nearly half of Libya in the process.

Both the LNA and Turkish-backed GNA made extensive use of combat drones, but only Turkey brought with it an integrated approach to drone warfare. Observers have grown accustomed to the concept of individual US drones operating freely over places such as Iraq, Yemen, and Afghanistan, delivering precision strikes against terrorist targets. However, as Iran demonstrated this past May, drones are vulnerable to modern air-defense systems, and US drone tactics would not work over contested airspace.

Likewise, the LNA, which made extensive use of Chinese-made combat drones flown by UAE pilots, enjoyed great success until Turkey intervened. Its electronic warfare and integrated air-defense capabilities then made LNA drone operations impossible to conduct, and the inability of the LNA to field an effective defense against the Turkish drone operations resulted in the tide of battle rapidly shifting on the ground. If anything, the cost differential between the Turkish-backed GNA and the LNA was greater than the $1-to-$5 advantage enjoyed by Turkey in Syria.

The big players – the US, Russia & China – are playing catch-up

By the time Turkey began cooperating with Azerbaijan against Armenia in September 2020, Turkish drone warfare had reached its zenith, and the outcome in Nagorno-Karabakh was all but assured. One of the main lessons drawn from the Turkish drone experiences in Syria, Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh is that these conflicts were not fought against so-called “poor countries.”

Rather, the Turks were facing off against well-equipped and well-trained forces operating equipment which closely parallels that found in most small- and medium-sized European countries. Indeed, in all three conflicts, Turkey was facing off against some of the best anti-aircraft missile defenses produced by Russia. The reality is that most nations, if confronted by a Turkish “drone swarm,” would not fare well.

And the multiple deployment of drones is only going to expand. The US Army is currently working on what it calls the “Armed, Fully-Autonomous Drone Swarm,” or AFADS. When employed, AFADS will – autonomously, without human intervention – locate, identify, and attack targets using what is known as a “Cluster Unmanned Airborne System Smart Munition,” which will dispense a swarm of small drones that fan out over the battlefield to locate and destroy targets.

China has likewise tested a system that deploys up to 200 “suicide drones”designed to saturate a battlespace and destroy targets by flying into them. And this past September, the Russian military integrated “drone-swarm”capabilities for the first time in a large-scale military exercise.

The face of modern warfare has been forever altered, and those nations that are not prepared or equipped to fight in a battlefield where drone technology is fully incorporated in every aspect of the fight can expect outcomes similar to that of Armenia: severe losses of men and equipment, defeat, humiliation and the likely loss of their territory. This is the reality of modern warfare which, as Gustav Gressel notes, should make any nation not fully vested in drone technology “think – and worry.”

By Dan Cohen

Throughout his campaign, Joe Biden railed against Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ foreign policy, claiming it weakened the United States and left the world in disarray.

He pledged to reverse this decline and recover the damage Trump did to America’s reputation. While Donald Trump called to make America Great Again, Biden seeks to Make the American Empire Great Again.

Among the president-elect’s pledges is to end the so-called forever wars – the decades-long imperial projects in Afghanistan and Iraq that began under the Bush administration.

Yet Biden – a fervent supporter of those wars – will task ending them to the most neoconservative elements of the Democratic party and ideologues of permanent war.

Michele Flournoy and Tony Blinken sit atop Biden’s thousands-strong foreign policy brain trust and have played central roles in every U.S. war going back to the Clinton administration.

In the Trump era, they’ve cashed in, founding Westexec Advisors – a corporate consulting firm that has become home for Obama administration officials awaiting a return to government.

Flournoy is Biden’s leading pick for secretary of defense and Blinken is expected to be national security advisor.

Biden’s foxes guard the henhouse

Since the 1990s, Flournoy and Blinken have steadily risen through the ranks of the military-industrial complex, shuffling back and forth between the Pentagon and hawkish think-tanks funded by the U.S. government, weapons companies, and oil giants.

Under Bill Clinton, Flournoy was the principal author of the 1996 Quadrinellial Defense Review, the document that outlined the U.S. military’s doctrine of permanent war – what it called “full spectrum dominance.”

Flournoy called for “unilateral use of military power” to ensure “uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources.”

As Bush administration officials lied to the world about Saddam Hussein’s supposed WMD’s, Flournoy remarked that “In some cases, preemptive strikes against an adversary’s [weapons of mass destruction] capabilities may be the best or only option we have to avert a catastrophic attack against the United States.”

Tony Blinken was a top advisor to then-Senate foreign relations committee chair Joe Biden, who played a key role in shoring up support among the Democrat-controlled Senate for Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq.

As Iraq was plunged into chaos and bloodshed, Flournoy was among the authors of a paper titled “Progressive Internationalism” that called for a “smarter and better” style of permanent war. The paper chastised the anti-war left and stated that “Democrats will maintain the world’s most capable and technologically advanced military, and we will not flinch from using it to defend our interests anywhere in the world.”

With Bush winning a second term, Flournoy advocated for more troop deployments from the sidelines.

In 2005, Flournoy signed onto a letter from the neoconservative think tank Project for a New American Century, asking Congress to “increase substantially the size of the active duty Army and Marine Corps (by) at least 25,000 troops each year over the next several years.”

In 2007, she leveraged her Pentagon experience and contacts to found what would become one of the premier Washington think tanks advocating endless war across the globe: the Center for a New American Security (CNAS).

CNAS is funded by the U.S. government, arms manufacturers, oil giants, Silicon Valley tech giants, billionaire-funded foundations, and big banks.

Flournoy joined the Obama administration and was appointed as under secretary of defense for policy, the position considered the “brains” of the Pentagon.

She was keenly aware that the public was wary of more quagmires. In the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, she crafted a new concept of warfare that would expand the permanent war state while giving the appearance of a drawdown.

Flournoy wrote that “unmanned systems hold great promise” – a reference to the CIA’s drone assassination program.

This was the Obama-era military doctrine of hybrid war. It called for the U.S. to be able to simultaneously wage war on numerous fronts through secret warfare, clandestine weapons transfers to proxies, drone strikes, and cyber-attacks – all buttressed with propaganda campaigns targeting the American public through the internet and corporate news media.

Architects of America’s Hybrid wars

Flournoy continued to champion the endless wars that began in the Bush-era and was a key architect of Obama’s disastrous troop surge in Afghanistan. As U.S. soldiers returned in body bags and insurgent attacks and suicide bombings increased some 65% from 2009 and 2010, she deceived the Senate Armed Services Committee, claiming that the U.S. was beginning to turn the tide against the Taliban.

Even with her lie that the U.S. and Afghan government were starting to beat the Taliban back, Flournoy assured the senate that the U.S. would have to remain in Afghanistan long into the future.

Ten years later – as the Afghan death toll passed 150,000 – Flournoy continued to argue against a U.S. withdrawal.

That’s the person Joe Biden has tasked with ending the forever war in Afghanistan. But in Biden’s own words, he’ll “bring the vast majority of our troops home from Afghanistan” implying some number of American troops will remain, and the forever war will be just that. Michele Flournoy explained that even if a political settlement were reached, the U.S. would maintain a presence.

In 2011, the Obama-era doctrine of smart and sophisticated warfare was unveiled in the NATO regime-change war on Libya.

Moammar Gaddafi – the former adversary who sought warm relations with the U.S. and had given up his nuclear weapons program – was deposed and sodomized with a bayonet.

Flournoy, Hillary Clinton’s State Department, and corporate media were in lockstep as they waged an extensive propaganda campaign to deceive the U.S. public that Gadaffi’s soldiers were on a Viagra-fueled rape and murder spree that demanded a U.S. intervention.

All of this was based on a report from Al Jazeera – the media outlet owned by the Qatari monarchy that was arming extremist militias to overthrow the government.

Yet an investigation by the United Nations called the rape claims “hysteria.” Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch found no credible evidence of even a single rape.

Even after Libya was descended into strife and the deception of Gadaffi’s forces committing rape was debunked, Michele Flournoy stood by her support for the war.

Tony Blinken, then Obama’s deputy national security advisor, also pushed for regime change in Libya. He became Obama’s point man on Syria, pushed to arm the so-called “moderate rebels” that fought alongside al-Qaeda and ISIS, and designed the red line strategy to trigger a full-on U.S. intervention. Syria, he told the public, wasn’t anything like the other wars the U.S. had waging for more than a decade.

Despite Blinken’s promises that it would be a short affair, the war on Syria is now in its ninth year. An estimated half a million people have been killed as a result and the country is facing famine,

Largely thanks to the policy of using “wheat to apply pressure” – a recommendation of Flournoy and Blinken’s CNAS think tank.

When the Trump administration launched airstrikes on Syria based on mere accusations of a chemical attack, Tony Blinken praised the bombing, claiming Assad had used the weapon of mass destruction sarin. Yet there was no evidence for this claim, something even then-secretary of Defense James Mattis admitted.

While jihadist mercenaries armed with U..S-supplied weapons took over large swaths of Syria, Tony Blinken played a central role in a coup d’etat in Ukraine that saw a pro-Russia government overthrown in a U.S.-orchestrated color revolution with neo-fascist elements agitating on the ground.

At the time, he was ambivalent about sending lethal weapons to Ukraine, instead opting for economic pressure.

Since then, fascist militias have been incorporated into Ukraine’s armed forces. And Tony Blinken urged Trump to send them deadly weapons – something Obama had declined to do.

Trump obliged.

The Third Offset

While the U.S. fuelled wars in Syria and Ukraine, the Pentagon announced a major shift called the Third Offset strategy – a reference to the cold war era strategies the U.S. used to maintain its military supremacy over the Soviet Union.

The Third Offset strategy shifted the focus from counterinsurgency and the war on terror to great power competition against China and Russia, seeking to ensure that the U.S. could win a war against China in Asia. It called for a technological revolution in warfighting capabilities, development of futuristic and autonomous weapons, swarms of undersea and airborne drones, hypersonic weapons, cyber warfare, machine-enhanced soldiers, and artificial intelligence making unimaginably complex battlefield decisions at speeds incomprehensible to the human mind. All of this would be predicated on the Pentagon deepening its relationship with Silicon Valley giants that it birthed decades before: Google and Facebook.

The author of the Third Offset, former undersecretary of defense Robert Work, is a partner of Flournoy and Blinken’s at WestExec Advisors. And Flournoy has been a leading proponent of this dangerous new escalation.

In June, Flournoy published a lengthy commentary laying out her strategy called “Sharpening the U.S. Military’s Edge: Critical Steps for the Next Administration”.

She warned that the United States is losing its military technological advantage and reversing that must be the Pentagon’s priority. Without it, Flournoy warned that the U.S. might not be able to defeat China in Asia.

While Flournoy has called for ramping up U.S. military presence and exercises with allied forces in the region, she went so far as to call for the U.S. to increase its destructive capabilities so much that it could launch a blitzkrieg style-attack that would wipe out the entire Chinese navy and all civilian merchant ships in the South China Sea. Not only a blatant war crime but a direct attack on a nuclear power that would spell the third world war.

At the same time, Biden has announced he’ll take an even more aggressive and confrontational stance against Russia, a position Flournoy shares.

As for ending the forever wars, Tony Blinken says not so fast.

The end of forever wars?

So Biden will end the forever wars, but not really end them. Secret wars that the public doesn’t even know the U.S. is involved in – those are here to stay.

In fact, leaving teams of special forces in place throughout the Middle East is part and parcel of the Pentagon’s shift away from counterinsurgency and towards great power competition.

The 2018 National Defense Strategy explains that “Long-term strategic competitions with China and Russia are the principal priorities” and the U.S. will “consolidate gains in Iraq and Afghanistan while moving to a more resource-sustainable approach.”

As for the catastrophic war on Yemen, Biden has said he’ll end U.S. support, but in 2019, Michele Flournoy argued against ending arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Biden pledged he will rejoin the Iran deal as a starting point for new negotiations. However, Trump’s withdrawal from the deal discredited the Iranian reformists who seek engagement with the west and empowered the principlists who see the JCPOA as a deal with the devil.

In Latin America, Biden will revive the so-called anti-corruption campaigns that were used as a cover to oust the popular social democrat Brazilian president Lula da Silva.

His Venezuela policy will be almost identical to Trump’s – sanctions and regime change.

In Central America, Biden has proposed a 4 billion dollar package to support corrupt right-wing governments and neoliberal privatization projects that create even more destabilization and send vulnerable masses fleeing north to the United States.

Behind their rhetoric, Biden, Flournoy, and Blinken will seek nothing less than global supremacy, escalating a new and even more dangerous arms race that risks the destruction of humanity. That’s what Joe Biden calls “decency” and “normalcy.”

Feature photo | Graphic by Antonio Cabrera for MintPress News

Dan Cohen is a journalist and filmmaker. He has produced widely distributed video reports and print dispatches from across Israel-Palestine. Dan is a correspondent at RT America and tweets at @DanCohen3000.

Feature photo | Graphic by Antonio Cabrera for MintPress News

by Scott Ritter

The US has long dismissed Russian concerns over the deployment of the Aegis Ashore missile defense system on European soil. This week’s test of the SM-3 Block IIA interceptor against an ICBM has proven Russian concerns correct.

On Tuesday, the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) announced itconducted a test of an Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) System-equipped Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the USS John Finn, against what was termed a “threat-representative Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) target” using a Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IIA interceptor. The test object was launched from Kwajalein Atoll, in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, toward an area of the Pacific Ocean northeast of Hawaii. According to the MDA, the SM-3 Block IIA missile successfully intercepted its target.

The successful test is but the latest in a series intended to prepare the SM-3 Block IIA missile and its associated systems–the Aegis Baseline-9 Weapons System and Command and Control Battle Management Communications (C2BMC) network–for operational duty as America’s frontline missile defense capability.

Previously, the Aegis weapons system had been advertised by the US as being limited against short- and intermediate-range missile threats. This reasoning was cited by both US and NATO officials as a counter to long-standing Russian concerns that the Aegis Ashore missile defense systems installed in Romania and Poland represented a threat to Russian strategic missile capabilities. The shooting down of an ICBM-like target by the Aegis BMD System has shown that Russia’s concerns were, in fact, well grounded.

The Aegis system tested off the coast of Hawaii is identical to those recently made operational in Romania and under construction in Poland,having been specifically designed to use the Aegis Baseline 9 Weapons System, and are interoperable with the US C2BMC European network. As such, there is no reason the European Aegis Ashore sites cannot be used to intercept ICBMs. Indeed, while the Romanian Aegis Ashore is currently equipped with the less-capable SM-3 Block IB interceptor, the Polish Aegis Ashore site will use the SM-3 Block IIA interceptor, providing an ICBM-killing capability for the European continent.

Russia has long held that the deployment of anti-ballistic missile systems in Europe represented a major alteration of the strategic balance of power, insofar as it empowered a potential US/NATO nuclear first strike scenario, in which US nuclear-armed missiles would be launched against Russian strategic nuclear forces in an effort to preemptively destroy them. Europe would then avoid the certainty of mutually assured destruction by hiding behind the US missile defense shield, which in theory would be capable of shooting down the handful of Russian missiles that might survive such an attack.

In response to the initial deployment of Aegis Ashore in Europe, Russia forward-deployed short-range nuclear missiles into Kaliningrad as a deterrent.

The SM-3 Block IIA interceptor represents a great threat to Russia. When deployed from aboard Baseline-9 equipped Arleigh Burke-class destroyers integrated into the C2BMC network, the SM-3 Block IIA interceptor becomes the anchor of a potentially global missile defense shield capable of nullifying the ICBM strike potential of all would-be adversaries–including Russia.

The US Navy currently bases four Arleigh Burke-class destroyers at its Naval Base in Rota, Spain, and has plans to increase this number to six in the near future. These destroyers have begun patrolling the Barents Sea, above the Arctic Circle, putting them in a position to shoot down Russian ICBMs trying to reach the US by overflying the Arctic.

The threat posed to Russia by the SM-3 Block IIA is real. Russia has long linked further progress in arms control to the need for the US to agree to limitations on its ballistic missile defense capabilities to prevent the very situation that is unfolding today.

By putting the SM-3 Black IIA interceptor to the test as an anti-ICBM weapon, the US has made the New START treaty irrelevant overnight, testing the willingness of Russia to agree to an extension. Even if Russia does allow the New START treaty to be extended, there is little doubt that it will insist on meaningful and verifiable limits to US ballistic missile defense capabilities, including the SM-3 Block IIA interceptor, before Russia could sign on to a new follow-on strategic arms reduction treaty.

More critically is what the new SM-3 Block IIA does to the current Russian nuclear posture, which is already being re-evaluated in light of the decision by the US to deploy low-yield nuclear warheads onboard US missile-carrying submarines.

The combination of low-yield nuclear weapons on board US submarines lurking off Russia’s coast with US destroyers equipped to shoot down Russian ICBMs is the stuff of any Russian nuclear planner’s worst nightmare. Russia will most likely be compelled to reexamine its alert posture to account for the increased possibility that the US may seek to launch a preemptive decapitation attack using low-yield nuclear weapons.

This means that Russia will be compelled to react quickly to any detection event suggestive of such a strike, reducing the time for leaders to consider the possibility of error before giving the order to launch. In short, while the US may claim that the SM-3 Block IIA is a defensive weapon that creates stability in regional and global security, the exact opposite is the case–the SM-3 Block IIA increases the chance for inadvertent nuclear war between the US and Russia. This is never a good outcome.

by Morgan Artyukhina via Sputnik

The position paper builds on shifts in US global strategy in recent years toward what the Pentagon has called “great power competition” with Russia and China, which Washington sees as “revisionists” attempting to rewrite the US-led post-Cold War world order.

On Tuesday, Axios published an unclassified document from the US State Department’sOffice of Policy Planning that lays out a series of goals the US must achieve if it wants to forestall the rise of China as a global superpower.

The document, titled “The Elements of the China Challenge,” bears a number of similarities to the 1947 “long telegram” written by George F. Kennan, a senior US diplomat to the Soviet Union, about how the US should address the rise of that socialist superpower. Kennan advised a policy of “containment” through regional alliances and steady undermining of the Soviet socialist system that became the basis of the Cold War that followed.

‘Return to the Fundamentals’

Like Kennan, this new document purports to analyze the psychology of the Chinese people and suggests the socialist government of the Communist Party of China (CPC, sometimes rendered CCP) has fundamentally different values from the Chinese people themselves, presenting a hostile threat to both them and the world.

However, the document isn’t quite the racialized “clash of civilizations” argument it could have been: Kiron Skinner, the policy planning office’s former chief who set in motion the effort to produce the present document, said in April 2019 that the US conflict with China was “a fight with a really different civilization.” She added, “It’s the first time that we will have a great power competitor that is not Caucasian.”

According to the paper, the US has to “return to the fundamentals,” casting aside the petty political squabbles and intrigues of recent years in order to present a more coherent and united vision for tackling China.

It lays out 10 ways this can be achieved, which are:

• “preserving constitutional government” at home
• maintaining the US military as the world’s strongest fighting force
• fortifying the “rules-based international order” the US created after World War II
• working to “reevaluate its alliance system and the panoply of international organizations in which it participates” to ensure they support this vision
• strengthening existing alliance systems and creating new ones
• cooperating with China when possible
• inculcating in the US populace the reasons why China must be fought
• training a new generation of public servants well-versed in Chinese language and culture, but who also support the vision of constraining China
• reforming the US education system to support that goal
• and championing “the principles of freedom” with rhetoric, sanctions and military force as necessary.

China Won’t Accept Number 2 Spot

The document builds heavily on the principles outlined by the White House and Pentagon since US President Donald Trump took office in 2017. The National Security Strategy, National Defense Strategy and Indo-Pacific Strategy Report have solidified the US strategic shift away from the Global War on Terror and toward “inter-state strategic competition,” primarily with China, but also with Russia – which, along with China, has been labeled by the Pentagon as a “revisionist” power – and several other nations that ardently defy US influence on their affairs, such as Iran and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. However, elements of that shift can be seen in the prior administration of US President Barack Obama and his “pivot to East Asia.”

According to this argument, US actions are defensive in nature, provoked by attempts by Beijing, Moscow and others to upset the US-led world order in which Washington calls the shots around the globe and has the freedom to punish nations that refuse to follow its lead politically, economically or militarily.

The paper argues that the Communist Party of China “aims not merely at preeminence within the established order – an order that is grounded in free and sovereign nation-states, flows from the universal principles on which America was founded, and advances US national interests – but to fundamentally revise world order, placing the People’s Republic of China (PRC) at the center and serving Beijing’s authoritarian goals and hegemonic ambitions.”

A remarkable passage in the first chapter illustrates the contrast in visions: whereas it quotes Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013 stating he hopes that one day China’s efforts will build a socialism superior to capitalism and that the country “will win the initiative and have the dominant position,” a couple of paragraphs later the documents reveals the problem the US has is that China will not accept the role Washington has outlined for it as an inferior power.

“Speculations about ‘the end of history’ – that liberal democracy, owing to its reasonableness and universal appeal, was spreading around the globe – nourished the faith” that China would abandon its socialist project in the late 20th century, the paper says. “But the CCP has stuck to its authoritarian convictions. The party consistently affirmed its fidelity to Marxism-Leninism as a paradigm for China’s governance, and socialism – the state control of economy and society – as a model not only for the PRC but also for other nations and as the basis of an alternative world order.”

In other words, China has stubbornly refused to accept the West’s notion that socialism has been defeated and that the US “won” the great battle of history, and Beijing’s continued success at presenting an alternative to that narrative has made it a greater threat than ever.

Beijing Sees Role as Blazing ‘New Trail’ for Developing World

The State Department’s caricature of China contrasts sharply with how Beijing has described its own goals for the next several decades.

At the CPC’s 19th Party Congress in 2017, Xi set out two “centenary goals” for the countryto reach by 2049, the 100-year anniversary of the Chinese socialist revolution and the formation of the People’s Republic of China.

In 1949, the Communist Party of China described its victory in the civil war as ending the “Century of Humiliation,” during which China’s political and economic life was controlled by the Western powers and by Japan, arresting its development as a nation. In contrast, by 2049, Xi said he hopes China will become a “fully developed nation” and “a global leader in terms of comprehensive national power and international influence.”

Xi described what this global leadership would look like, too: he said that socialism with Chinese characteristics, the post-Mao Zedong era’s blending of socialist planning with state-directed capitalist enterprises and “special economic zones” to attract foreign investment, had “blazed a new trail for other developing countries to achieve modernization” and that it provides “a new option for other countries and nations who want to speed up their development.” Further, it “offers Chinese wisdom and a Chinese approach to solving the problems facing mankind.”

An enormous part of this has been the Belt and Road Initiative, a colossal infrastructure effort spanning much of the globe. The project has led to railroads, highways, ports, airports, hydroelectric dams and other economic projects in dozens of countries in Africa, Asia and even in Europe. Many of the project’s partners are former European colonies, but China and partnership investment banks provide them with more favorable loan agreements than Western institutions while remaining hands-off about their domestic policies.

by Ivan Danilov via StalkerZone

Hillary Clinton – the “grey cardinal” and failed US President – published a program text in the authoritative American magazine “Foreign Policy”, which can and should be considered a real strategy of the American “deep state” in restoring American world hegemony.

The throne speech of the future zombie president Biden can no longer be listened to or read: Mrs. Clinton formulated everything in the most clear and unambiguous terms, and – given the place of the “Clinton clan” in the real table of ranks of American politics – the chances of this strategy being implemented are very, very high.

The most paradoxical thing about the text of the failed “Madame President” (as she called herself) is that this program is a holistic, large and thorough recognition that Donald Trump was right. Donald Trump, even if he ends his life behind bars (and this is a very likely scenario), can write down an incredible achievement for himself – he broke the historical course of the US, and even those who are most likely to come to power using the votes of American cemeteries are already forced to build their foreign and even domestic policy, focusing, among other things, on those reference points that the eccentric New York billionaire has hammered into the American political discourse.

Despite the ritual (and rather emotional) criticism of the 45th President of the United States, Mrs. Clinton draws attention to the problems that before Democrats preferred not just to ignore, but to deny:

“Administrations of both parties have long underappreciated the security implications of economic policies that weakened strategically important industries and sent vital supply chains overseas. The foreign policy community understandably focused on how new trade agreements would cement alliances and extend American influence in developing countries. Democrats should have been more willing to hit the brakes on new trade agreements when Republicans obstructed efforts to support workers, create jobs, and invest in hard-hit communities at home,” Clinton writes.

If it weren’t for the jab at the Republicans, who were really quite irresponsible about the consequences of economic globalisation, you would think that this passage was written by one of the speechwriters of Donald Trump, who built his entire political career on accusations against both Democrats and Republicans that they deliberately took American jobs and production facilities to China, which led to a situation in which Beijing can compete with Washington in the battle for the status of a leading world power.

Globalisation in the American way has died, because it was killed by Trump, and now even the leading politician of the Democratic Party inserts Trumpian cliches in her program text and points to China as a threat to US national security — not only military, but also (above all) economic.

It is worth noting that Hillary Clinton’s program pays more attention to the fight against China than the fight against Russia, although in many cases the mention of the main enemies of the US in its text is separated by commas. At least, at the level of goal setting, there can be no question of any “concentration of all forces on Russia”. The whole discussion is based on the need to move away from the cold war cliches and find the right way to strangle China first, and Russia — for company.

However, pointing to certain “Trumpian” changes in the democratic political discourse, it is impossible not to note the iron consistency in terms of maintaining a focus only on confrontation — judging by Mrs. Clinton’s text, the idea of peaceful coexistence with China and Russia, not to mention any substantive cooperation or detente, simply does not occur to her. Even diplomacy is perceived by the former head of the State Department primarily as a tool that provides a more convenient opportunity for forceful pressure. For example, when criticising the Trump administration for failing to work with allies, she cites the following example of proper diplomacy:

“A renewed commitment to diplomacy would strengthen the United States’ military position. U.S. alliances are an asset that neither China nor Russia can match, allowing Washington to project force around the world. When I was secretary of state, for example, we secured an agreement to base 2,500 U.S. marines in northern Australia, near the contested sea-lanes of the South China Sea.”

By and large, the world will see a reformatting of the tribute that the US is trying to shake out from its vassals, and if Trump (as a real businessman) preferred payment in the form of money (which is why Clinton accuses him of turning NATO into a “racketeer” business), the more refined approach of the Democratic establishment is that vassals will pay both in money and, so to speak, in kind – in the form of actions that can help the US gain some military advantages over China or Russia.

However, there is good news: at least at the declarative level, the “grey cardinal” of the Biden administration advocates to avoid “accidental”nuclear war with China or Russia, which against the background of the presence in the Biden administration of a certain number of completely crazy “hawks” cannot but rejoice.

Speaking about the need to create new conventional weapons systems, Clinton emphasises that “these capabilities must be accompanied by mechanisms that allow for consultation with China and Russia to reduce the chances that a long-range conventional attack is mistaken for a nuclear strike, which could lead to disastrous escalation”. Of course, it is good that Washington is likely to make efforts to make such a mechanism work, but the fixation of the American establishment (speaking to us in the voice of an former Secretary of State) on promoting its geopolitical interests with the help of missile and bomb attacks (even non-nuclear ones) cannot cause positive emotions.

A return of the American “deep state” to the levers of a American political, military and diplomatic machine will not be a global apocalypse, but there will definitely not be peace on the planet: the US will try to return some production capacity to its territory, and will actively try to pressure geopolitical opponents via military and diplomatic methods. And if there are serious doubts about the ability of the Biden administration to return the US economy to an industrial production orientation, then there can be no doubt that the American military machine will gladly return to the continuation of bloody escapades around the world.

by Gordon Duff, Veterans Today, Senior Editor

The report below is taken from an intelligence dump by Russian sources. As the origin is from an intelligence agency in the form of a “leak,” there are always questions. Thus far, we have found not only is the majority of the material confirmed but several solutions to serious problems involving 9/11 are included.

I have redacted little here. However, this arrived with vast supporting documentation which can, in the future, be uploaded on SCRIBD for access. One key area is that the US had supplied Israel with surplus nuclear weapons. [Editor’s note: We are advised that some of the documentation can never be uploaded or distributed for reasons that will be obvious.]

We have a very solid confirmation on this. Back during the 1980s, Israel showed her inventory of Davy Crockett tactical nuclear warheads to one of our editors, who at the time was a senior NATO intelligence official. These early “micro-nukes” were taken out of US inventory in 1978 and “disappeared.”

Nuclear “Test”

This highly classified report is being published unaltered except for bad machine translation errors being repaired. My personal opinion is that this is NOT a disinformation piece but rather represents a significant breakthrough. I believe that this is a rare glimpse behind the curtain.

I am publishing this for the use of those qualified to understand how little of this is really new. Those things that are new are groundbreaking. For those who find this all a bit over their heads, there is little I can do other than to let you know that this is the world “your elders” really live in and that you finally have a chance to look in mom and dad’s top dresser drawer.

The Dave Crockett

Too Classified to Publish

W48 – 155mm

According to a retired FXX agent specializing in Israeli counter intel: The type of nuclear devices used on 911 were a modified version of the W-54 nuclear artillery shells that were covertly provided to the Israelis between 1988 and 1998 from US surplus stockpiles illegally exported during the Bush/Clinton era.

Chemical analysis done by DOE Sandia was able to identify the chemical/radiation footprint or fingerprint of the warheads based on samples taken after 911 of the fallout at ground zero. (Editor’s note: Nuclear weapon use at ground zero is confirmed from multiple sources)

All plutonium based warheads have a chemical fingerprint that can identify the type of design and where the PU was made and how old it is. This was the 911 blackmail on Bush 1 and 2, the illegal transfer of surplus US nuclear weapons to the Israelis and why the continued cover up, along with the stolen gold and stock fraud that was going on Wall Street etc. According to file ENW57.pdf on page 66. (Editor’s note: Document received and confirmed)

Only a 2 kiloton device was needed to drop the buildings. A 2 kiloton device will produce a fireball of apx 150 to 200 feet in diameter at over 4000 degrees Centigrade. Just large enough to melt the I beams of the central core of the building and drop them in place. The light flash would last less than 1 second and primarily be in the UV light range. Overpressure would only be at 60PSI max and directed upwards with the blast. See underground effect.

Fallout would be minimal and located to within ground zero range only. Radiation would drop to acceptable levels within 72 hrs. after the blast. Most fall out was trapped in the cement dust thus causing all of the recent cancer deaths that we are now seeing in NYC amongst first responders. (Editor’s note: Consistent with site data)

High FluxIsotope Reactor Core – Cross Section

Melted steel and iron oxide or “nano thermite” is a byproduct of the very high gamma ray / Neutron flux induced into the central steel core. The radiation dissolves the steel into iron oxide consuming the carbon and silicone in the steel.

This explains the missing steel columns and the very important clue of the “vaporized’ 20 ton antenna tower atop the south tower. The upward blast of radiation literally vaporized it. Video evidence proves this to be true. (Editor’s note: Tower issue a vital one.)

The total XXOO data file from DOE Sandia on the 911 event is well over 72 MB. P.S. Snowden didn’t have a Q clearance so he missed this one. Carnaberry had a pretty good stash of documents on the subject. (All under the transit stuff.) The entire nuclear nonproliferation story of stolen nuclear material coming from Russia was an Israeli cover story to hide the original source of weapons material coming from the US stock piles. (Editor’s note: Fully confirmed)

Illegal distribution of US nuclear material to foreign allies was not limited to Israel. Virtually all NATO allies were in on this scam too. Dick Cheney was the bad guy on this one. Bush2/Cheney traded nuclear pits to foreign country as IOU’s in order to get what they wanted. Tom Countryman a well-known Israeli operative is curiously now in charge of N.N.P. at the State Department under Obama.(?) He was put there by Ram Emanuel.

Early Israeli core model – Vannunu photo

It appears that the weapon of choice for the Israelis were the W-54 and follow on series of nuclear pits taken from the Amarillo TX storage dump. This was what Carnaberry was working on for Bush senior in Houston.

A total of over 350 pits were transferred to the Israelis over a 10 to 20 year period of time. The W-54 type of pit design were the most desirable due to the 2 point implosion pit design. This is the easiest to re manufacture and modify as compared to other circular pit designs.

The pill shaped design of the W-54 type weapon contains over 1.5 times more plutonium than a standard pit. This would allow enough Plutonium to be recovered that was still of weapons grade use even after 32 plus years of age. Americium build up in the pit over time eventually makes the Pit unusable as a weapon so they have a limited shelf life based on how fast or slow the Plutonium was produce in the reactor at Stanford.

Usually it was about 150 days max. Irradiation time in the reactor during production determines the shelf life of the pit as weapons grade material. All of the micro nukes used by the Israelis are re-manufactured W-54 type series devices.

These devices were used in the Bali bombing and the London bombing and in Japan on their reactors. (Editor’s note: Nuclear weapon use in Bali confirmed) Also used in Damascus, Iraq and Afghanistan by the US. (Editor’s note: Multiple confirmation including site samples.)

These are stored in most Israelite embassies for ease of deployment. The one’s used on 911 were kept at the Israeli consulate in NYC until put in place. After 911 the FBI now checks all diplomatic pouches with a Geiger counter before entering or leaving the US. The South African weapons were also surplus W-54 artillery shells acquired from Israeli and final assembly and testing was done in South Africa with Israel assistance. (Editor’s note: This explains Pelendaba production issues.)

This was done because the Israelis needed a testing ground in order to make sure that there rebuilt weapons would work as designed. (Editor’s note: Testing on Sept. 22, 1979 multiple confirmations.) The North Korean weapons are also of the 155 mm artillery design as provided by Israel.

The true North Korean nuclear weapons program is based on nuclear artillery use and not missiles. The plan is to use a massive artillery barge on South Korea if war breaks out this include the use of small nuclear artillery shells to counter US tanks rockets and artillery.

The Saudi’s also have a stash of W-54’s acquired from the US under Bush2. (Editor’s note: Confirmed) The Israelis have also provided them to India, Brazil, China, Taiwan, Japan, North and South Korea etc. (Editor’s note: All but South Korea confirmed. Canada had been believed to be the source of Brazilian nuclear weapons.) Dimona is a standard 75 megawatt thermal open top reactor as used in France for their plutonium weapons production program, their version of Stanford (Editor’s note: Probably “Hanford”).

Dimona – Israel

Due to over use as a fast breeder reactor by the Israelis, Dimona suffered a “steam explosion” IE a flash over indecent (ed: ‘incident’) due to neutron criticality back in the late 1980’s under Bush 1. This shut down its operation for many years until repairs could be made.

It now only operates at very low power levels due to neutron absorption damage to the containment vessel. Now mainly use for isotope production. This forced the Israelis to turn to stolen nuclear stock piles from the US for the continuation of their nuclear program.
The Israelis knowing that the nuclear material that they had acquire only had a limited shelf life left before it was no longer usable as weapons grade then tried to dump it on the surplus market as fast as possible before it was of no use to them. So they dumped it on unsuspecting nations who would only sit on it and not be able to test it. These were the fizzle tests in North Korea. (Editor’s note: Confirmed, multiple sources)

When everybody caught on to the scam such as Japan and Korea. (IE the Korean sub sinkings etc) they were angry because they paid big bucks for junk. This started a mini cold war with Israel and her old clients. However with micro nukes even as the plutonium ages it will still fissile producing a smaller size detonation well under 2 kiloton in size.

So they can still be used as small dirty bombs or as very small tactical nukes such as the nuclear artillery strikes on Damascus with rocket assisted W-54’s. (Editor’s note: Confirmed strike, May 4, 2013) On the W-54 pit design it is pill shaped and it is only about 4 inches in diameter and weighs about 24 pounds.

Most of the fuel is consumed in the plasma fire ball when detonated so there is very little plutonium fallout left to escape. If it is salted with other materials the fallout can be even reduced to lower levels such as in an enhanced radiation device or the so called neutron bomb. This is what was used on 911.

Falling man – 911

The primary purpose of the nuclear weapon used on 911 was to produce a massive Gama ray / neutron flux that would vaporize about 150 to 300 feet of 6 inch thick steal I beams that constituted the central core of the WTC buildings. This created a free fall event as seen on TV that day. (Editor’s note: Critical information here.)

The flash would be hidden from sight due to the underground detonation. Most of the light was in the non-visible light spectrum any way. Over pressure would be reduced to 6 psi due to the blast traveling up the central core and neutron radiation vaporizing the TV antenna at the top of the building as see on TV.

The fallout would be mainly vaporized concrete cement and iron oxide. This is why after 911 they told everyone on TV that the beta radiation burns that people were getting were due to the caustic cement dust and not due to the radiation effects from the radioactive cement fallout. (Editor’s note: Fully confirmed)

The iron oxide found all over the place was what was left of the steel I beams. This was the so called Nano Thermite that was found everywhere. Fallout was limited to a 1 mile area around down town NYC. See charts. (Editor’s note: Received)

Radiation decay was reduced to safe low levels after 72 hrs., (Editor’s note: Fully confirmed) outside of ground zero its self. This is why the area was blocked off from the public for 3 days after the event, in order to let the radiation drop to safe levels.

Luis Arce celebrates with supporters during a press conference following the general election victory of MAS (Movement Towards Socialism) on October 19, 2020 in La Paz, Bolivia © Getty Images / Javier Maman

By Caitlin Johnstone, an independent journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her website is here and you can follow her on Twitter @caitoz

The US-centralized empire functions like a giant blob that absorbs nations and turns them into imperial client states. Once absorbed, it is rare for a country to escape and rejoin other genuinely sovereign nations.

The new president-elect of Bolivia, Luis Arce, has told the Spanish international news agency EFE that he intends to restore the nation’s relations with Cuba, Venezuela and Iran. This reverses the policies of the US-backed coup regime which immediately began closing embassies, kicking out doctors and severing relations with those nations after illegally seizing power last year.

Arce also spoke of warm relations with Russia and China.

“We are going to re-establish all relations,” he told EFE. “This government has acted very ideologically, depriving the Bolivian people of access to Cuban medicine, to Russian medicine, to advances in China. For a purely ideological issue, it has exposed the population in a way that is unnecessary and harmful.”

Arce expressed a willingness to “open the door to all countries, the only requirement is that they respect us and respect our sovereignty, nothing more. All countries, no matter the size, who want a relationship with Bolivia, the only requirement is that we respect each other as equals. If that is so, we have no problem.“

If you know anything about US imperialism and global politics, you will recognize that last bit as brazen heresy against imperial doctrine.

The unofficial doctrine of the empire-like cluster of international allies that is loosely centralized around the United States does not recognize the sovereignty of other nations, much less respect them as equals. This empire takes it as a given that it has every right to determine what every nation in the world does, who their leaders will be, where their resources will go, and what their military posture on the world stage will be. If a government refuses to accept the empire’s right to determine these things, it is targeted, sabotaged, attacked, and eventually replaced with a puppet regime.

The US-centralized empire functions like a giant blob that slowly works to absorb nations which have not yet been converted into imperial client states. It is rare that a nation is able to escape from that blob and rejoin the unabsorbed nations like China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela and Cuba in their fight for self-sovereignty, and it is encouraging that it was able to do so.

We saw the dynamics of the imperial blob explained quite vividly last year by American political analyst John Mearsheimer at a debate hosted by the Australian think tank Center for Independent Studies. Mearsheimer told his audience that the US is going to do everything it can to halt China’s rise and prevent it from becoming the regional hegemon in the eastern hemisphere, and that Australia should align with the US in that battle or else it would face the wrath of Washington.

I really like the nervous laughter 😬from Australian audience when John Mearsheimer told them if they choose to b friendly w China, US will show them how nasty it can be…https://t.co/NFZSCIucAZ

— Carl Zha (@CarlZha) October 8, 2020

“The question that’s on the table is what should Australia’s foreign policy be in light of the rise of China,” Mearsheimer said. “I’ll tell you what I would suggest if I were an Australian.”

Mearsheimer said China is going to continue to grow economically and will convert that economic power into military power to dominate Asia “the way the US dominates the western hemisphere,” and explained why he think the US and its allies have every ability to prevent that from happening.

“Now the question is what does this all mean for Australia?” Mearsheimer said. “Well, you’re in a quandary for sure. Everybody knows what the quandary is. And by the way you’re not the only country in East Asia that’s in this quandary. You trade a lot with China, and that trade is very important for your prosperity, no question about that. Security-wise, you really want to go with us. It makes just a lot more sense, right? And you understand that security is more important than prosperity, because if you don’t survive, you’re not gonna prosper.

“Now some people say there’s an alternative: you can go with China,” said Mearsheimer. “Right, you have a choice here: you can go with China rather the United States. There’s two things I’ll say about that. Number one, if you go with China you want to understand you are our enemy. You are then deciding to become an enemy of the United States. Because again, we’re talking about an intense security competition.

“You’re either with us or against us,” he continued. “And if you’re trading extensively with China, and you’re friendly with China, you’re undermining the United States in this security competition. You’re feeding the beast, from our perspective. And that is not going to make us happy. And when we are not happy you do not want to underestimate how nasty we can be. Just ask Fidel Castro.”

Nervous laughter from the Australian think tank audience punctuated Mearsheimer’s more incendiary observations. The CIA is known to have made numerous attempts to assassinate Castro.

If you’ve ever wondered how the the US is so successful in getting other nations around the world to align with its interests, this is how. It’s not that the US is a good actor on the world stage or a kind friend to its allies, it’s that it will destroy you if you disobey it.

Australia is not aligned with the US to protect itself from China. Australia is aligned with the US to protect itself from the US. As a Twitter follower recently observed, the US doesn’t have allies, only hostages.

As the recently released Palace Letters illustrated, the CIA staged a coup to oust Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam because he was prioritizing the nation’s self-sovereignty. Journalist John Pilger wrote in 2014 after Whitlam’s death:

Australia briefly became an independent state during the Whitlam years, 1972-75. An American commentator wrote that no country had “reversed its posture in international affairs so totally without going through a domestic revolution.” Whitlam ended his nation’s colonial servility. He abolished royal patronage, moved Australia towards the Non-Aligned Movement, supported “zones of peace” and opposed nuclear weapons testing.

The primary difference between the coup in Australia and the one in Bolivia was that the Bolivians refused to roll over and take it while we shrugged and said ‘No worries mate.’ We had every option to become a real nation and insist on our own self-sovereignty, but we, unlike the Bolivians, were too thoroughly propagandized and placid. Some hostages escape, some don’t.

The US empire got rid of Whitlam, and then when we elected in 2007 a prime minister who was considered too friendly with China they did it again; in order to facilitate the Obama administration’s “pivot” against Beijing the pro-China Kevin Rudd was replaced by the compliant Julia Gillard. World Socialist Website reports:

Secret US diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks in December 2010 revealed that “protected sources” of the US embassy were pivotal figures in Gillard’s elevation. For months, key coup plotters, including senators Mark Arbib and David Feeney, and Australian Workers Union (AWU) chief Paul Howes, secretly provided the US embassy with regular updates on internal government discussions and divisions within the leadership…

Rudd had proposed an Asia-Pacific Community, attempting to mediate the escalating strategic rivalry between the US and China, and opposed the formation of a quadrilateral military alliance between the US, India, Japan and Australia, aimed against China.

Gillard, who had cultivated her pro-US credentials through Australia-US and Australia-Israel leadership forums, was literally selected by the US embassy as a reliable replacement to Rudd. In her first public appearance after knifing Rudd, she demonstrated her devotion to Washington by posing for a photo op with the US ambassador, flanked by US and Australian flags. She soon had a phone call with Obama, who had previously twice postponed a planned visit to Australia under Rudd.

The centrality of Australia to the US preparations for war against China became apparent in November 2011, when Obama announced his “pivot to Asia” in the Australian parliament, rather than the White House. During the visit, Gillard and Obama signed an agreement to station American Marines in Darwin and allow greater US access to other military bases, placing the Australian population on the front line of any conflict with China.

Gillard’s government also sanctioned the expansion of the major US spying and weapons-targeting base at Pine Gap, agreed to the US military’s increased use of Australian ports and airbases, and stepped up Australia’s role in the US-led top-level “Five Eyes” global surveillance network, which monitors the communications and online activities of millions of people worldwide.

Rudd’s removal marked a turning point. US imperialism, via the Obama administration, sent a blunt message: There was no longer any room for equivocation by the Australian ruling elite. Regardless of which party was in office, it had to line up unconditionally behind the US conflict with China, no matter what the consequences for the loss of its massive export markets in China.

This is what we’re seeing all around the world now: a slow motion third world war being waged by the US power alliance against the remaining nations which have resisted being absorbed into it. As the most powerful of the unabsorbed nations by far, China is the ultimate target of this war. If the empire succeeds in its ultimate goal of stopping China, it will have attained a de facto planetary government which no population will be able to oppose or dissent from.

I don’t know about you, but I never consented to a world where powerful nuclear-armed forces wave Armageddon weapons at each other while fighting for planetary domination and subverting less powerful nations if they don’t play along with their Cold War games. Detente and peace must be sought and obtained, and we must all work to live together on this planet in collaboration with each other and with our ecosystem.

This omnicidal, ecocidal way of living that the oligarchic empire has laid out for us does not suit our species, and it will drive us to extinction along with God knows how many other species if we do not find a way to end it. Rulers historically do not cede their power willingly, so we ordinary human beings as a collective are going to have to find a way to destroy their propaganda engine, force an end to imperialism, and build a healthy world.