A News Aggregator That Covers The World's Major Wars And Conflicts. Military, Political, And Intelligence News Are Also Covered. Occasionally We Will Have Our Own Opinions Or Observations To Make.
A new form of conflict emerged in 2015—from the Islamic State to the South China Sea.
From China in Asia to Russia in Europe and the Middle East, and ISIS just about everywhere, 2015 has seen the flourishing of conflicts that exist in a gray zone, one which is not quite open war but more than regular competition, which is attuned to globalization, which liberal democracies are ill-equipped to deal with, and which may well be the way power is exercised and conflict conducted in the foreseeable future.
Described by scholars as “hybrid,” “full-spectrum,” “non-linear,” “next-generation,” or “ambiguous”—the variations in the description indicate the slipperiness of the subject—these conflicts mix psychological, media, economic, cyber, and military operations without requiring a declaration of war.
WNU Editor: I disagree with Peter Pomerantsev's use of Ukraine in explaining his analysis .... Russia may not have helped the situation, but the Ukrainians did more than enough to mess up their country independent from Moscow. But having said that .... it is true .... some of the conflicts around the world involves the manipulation of legal understandings, media/communications, and psychology .... and China is doing it masterly in the South China Sea. The Islamic State is also a master of this .... and their weapon platform of choice is social media.
At a time when travel and video players were illegal in Romania, smuggled Chuck Norris tapes gave people a window to the West.
In the 1984 Chuck Norris film Missing In Action, there’s a scene in which Norris, as a former POW who has returned to Vietnam looking for MIAs, is captured and strung upside down by Vietnamese soldiers. One ties a bag over his head with a rat in it. But when the bag is untied, they discover that instead of the rat chewing Norris’ head off, it’s Our Hero who has killed the rat by biting into its neck.
In Soviet-era Romania, they loved scenes like this.
WNU Editor: Growing up I had my share of watching "banned" western movies. And yes .... they did have a huge impact throughout the eastern bloc. People quite often were more focused on the cars, clothes/fashion, homes, and how people interacted than on what the movie was all about.
Khaled al Otaiby, an official of the Saudi oil company Aramco, watches progress at a rig at the al-Howta oil field near Howta, Saudi Arabia, in this Feb. 26, 1997, photo. LJWorld
We’re awash with the black stuff – so we should celebrate the fact that the pessimists got it wrong
It is one of life’s mysteries that being wrong about everything has never been much of a barrier to success. Take Thomas Malthus, the British theologian: his big idea was that the number of human beings would necessarily grow faster than the supply of food, leading to calamity. There was little difference, in his mind, between people and rabbits: both were doomed to over-breed, over-consume and starve.
Yet this theory, expounded in 1798 in An Essay on the Principle of Population, one of the most influential books ever written, and now also routinely applied to oil and other resources, is bogus. Unlike rabbits, who are powerless to control their environment, the more we need, the more we eventually find a way of producing: the availability of food and oil are determined by technology and economics, not by some law of nature. Modern techniques (such as fertilisers, genetic selection or fracking) mean that agriculture and the extraction of commodities have become hugely more efficient.
WNU Editor: The big economic story for 2016 will be debt and rising interest rates. That (I predict) will be shaking the "Old World Order" more than oil.
President Barack Obama drives a Corvette, drinks coffee, and talks about nothing with Jerry Seinfeld.
As he does at the beginning of every episode of his popular Web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Jerry Seinfeld gave his latest guest a call on the way to pick him up.
“White House,” a familiar voice answered.
“Yes, may I speak with the president please?” Seinfeld asked politely.
“Speaking,” President Barack Obama said, delivering the first laugh of an entertainingly candid conversation between the two men.
Seinfeld rolled up to the White House in a cool blue 1963 Corvette Stingray for the episode, taped Dec. 7, and the pair did a couple of laps around the South Lawn. They didn’t make it too far, trading in the typical public café experience for a sit-down talk over coffee in the staff dining room to avoid the inevitable security concerns.
Space explorers, genetic scientists, US voters, terrorists and hackers look set to dominate our world next year – but don’t rule out the odd pleasant surprise
Never make predictions, especially about the future. So said Mark Twain, Yogi Berra or Niels Bohr – or possibly all three.
But if you must, there are really only two options: play safe and go for the obvious, or come up with forecasts so giddily optimistic that no one will take you seriously.
Using the former approach, 2016 will produce more tragedy in Syria and Yemen, an uninterrupted stream of refugees into Europe, another iteration of the Grexit crisis, deepening drought in the Chinese east and American west, and further hacking misadventure on both state and corporate levels. And an awful lot of summits to try to deal with all of the above.
Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- December 31, 2015
Countries around the world are marking the New Year, with festivities currently under way in parts of Europe and Africa.
Egypt, Greece and Turkey are among the latest countries to usher in 2016.
Earlier in Japan, people released balloons by Tokyo Tower, while South Koreans celebrated with fireworks and traditional bell-ringing ceremonies.
Revellers in Australia and New Zealand were some of the first to welcome the New Year.
Crowds counted down at Auckland's Sky Tower in New Zealand, with a laser show and fireworks display. Fireworks also lit up Sydney harbour in Australia.
In one of the more innovative celebrations, four divers equipped with musical instruments and breathing apparatus performed an underwater "concert" in a fish tank in Yantai, east China.
The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas has reportedly banned all New Year’s Eve celebrations this year, the Agence France-Presse reported Wednesday. Hotels and restaurants that requested permits to hold public parties Thursday night were denied the right to do so, and the police have vowed to clamp down on unlicensed celebrations.
Hamas leaders determined such celebrations were “incompatible with our customs, traditions, values and the teachings of our religion,” police spokesman Ayman al-Batinji told AFP. Parties for the holiday were also seen to contravene with “solidarity with the families of the martyrs of the Jerusalem intifada,” he said. The comment referred to turmoil that has spilled across much of the West Bank in recent months.
More News On Hamas Banning New Years Celebrations In Gaza For Being Incompatible With Islamic Values
AMIRIYAT FALLUJAH, Iraq — Along the vast, zigzagging perimeter of the Islamic State’s self-styled state, the militants are steadily being pushed back as the forces ranged against them gain in strength.
In the process, new borders are being drawn, new fiefdoms are being carved out and the seeds of potential new conflicts are being sown.
A war seen by the United States as primarily aimed at preventing future terrorist attacks in America is being prosecuted for very different reasons by the diverse assortment of Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni fighters battling in both Iraq and Syria, often in pursuit of competing agendas that work to subvert the goal of defeating the militants.
In northern Iraq and Syria, Kurds are busily carving out the borders to new Kurdish enclaves. Shiite militias, now the most powerful force in Iraq, are extending their reach deep into traditionally Sunni areas of northern Iraq. The Syrian government is focusing its energies on reclaiming land seized by its opponents during the five-year-old rebellion against it, while deeply divided Syrian rebels in turn are fighting a two-front war to hold their ground against both the government and the Islamic State.
WNU Editor: A sobering assessment on what is happening in Iraq .... but this analysis can also be applied to Syria, Libya, Yemen .... and who knows after that.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi forces may face a big battle near Baghdad before they can try to retake the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul: Falluja, a long-time bastion of Sunni Muslim jihadists at the capital's western gates.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's government and the U.S.-led coalition backing it have been cagey so far in plans for Falluja, which lies between Baghdad and Ramadi, the capital of western Anbar province that the Iraqi military recaptured this week from the militants.
Falluja was the first Iraqi city to fall to Islamic State in January 2014, six months before the group that emerged from al Qaeda swept through large parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria.Abadi said on Monday the army would head next to Mosul, the biggest urban center under Islamic State control. He said its capture would mark the end of the "caliphate" proclaimed from the northern city's main mosque in June 2014.
WNU Editor: The last time the U.S. and its allies fought for Fallujah (7 November – 23 December 2004) they had 10,500 US soldiers, 850 British soldiers, and 2,000 Iraqi soldiers. When the fight was over .... almost 100 US soldiers were dead, 600 wounded. Rebel losses were between 1,500 and 2,000 (Wikipedia). Bottom line .... if I was a betting man i would say that the fight for Fallujah is probably going to be more bloodier than Ramadi.
Iran condemned on Thursday as arbitrary and illegal reported U.S. plans for new sanctions on international companies and individuals over Tehran's ballistic missile program.
"As we have declared to the American government ... Iran's missile program has no connection to the (nuclear) agreement," state television quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari as saying.
In Washington, sources familiar with the situation said on Wednesday the U.S. government was preparing the sanctions, which the Wall Street Journal said would target about 12 companies and individuals in Iran, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates for their suspected role in developing Iran's missile program.
TEHRAN (FNA)- The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps which is in charge of Iran's security in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz denied US claims that its naval forces have fired missiles and rockets near the US warships in the waterway in recent days.
"The IRGC Navy has staged no drills in the Strait of Hormuz in the current week and the time claimed by the Americans and hasn’t fired any missile or rocket," IRGC Public Relations Chief General Ramezan Sharif said on Thursday.
"Releasing such fake news under the current conditions is more like a psychological warefare and should be given thought," he added.
Stressing that establishment of security and tranquility in the strategic region of the Persian Gulf is one of Iran's serious strategies, Sharif said, "The IRGC will stage its drills based on the timetables of its units in specified time and dates to enhance the necessary preparedness in this field."
Capable of cruising at speeds in excess of Mach 3.2, the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird was the fastest air-breathing manned aircraft to ever to see operational service. But even though its performance has never been matched, the SR-71 was retired as the Cold War drew to a close.
The Blackbird was initially retired in 1990, even before the fall of the Soviet Union. Eventually, however, three of the jets were reactivated by the Air Force—at the insistence of Congress—for a brief period between 1995 and 1998. Meanwhile, NASA flew research missions with the aircraft until 1999. In the end, the Blackbird was retired without a true replacement. But why?
WNU Editor: Its always the same story ... something better comes around and the costs of maintaining older models no longer makes any sense.
PRESIDENTIAL VISIT: Russian leader Vladimir Putin inspects a Sibur plant in Voronezh, Russia, in May 2013. On the far right is Kirill Shamalov, a major shareholder in Sibur and son-in-law of Putin. REUTERS/Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik/Kremlin
The son-in-law of Vladimir Putin stands to benefit from $1.75 billion in cheap finance from the Russian state, a Reuters examination of public documents shows. The money will help fund a petrochemical project at a company in which Kirill Shamalov, husband of Katerina Tikhonova, the Russian president's younger daughter, has a significant interest.
Shamalov is a major shareholder in Sibur, Russia's largest processor of petrochemicals. This month Sibur obtained $1.75 billion from Russia's National Wealth Fund to help build a huge new plant in Tobolsk, Siberia.
According to corporate documents, Sibur was able to borrow the money at a current interest rate of 2 percent. That is a bargain, according to financial analysts. Artyom Usmanov, an analyst at investment firm BCS, said borrowers on the Russian bond market would expect to pay over 7 percent interest for such a loan. Irina Alizarovskaya, an analyst with Raiffeisenbank called the financing "quite cheap."
Shamalov did not respond to a request for comment.
WNU Editor: As I commented two weeks on the same topic .... .... Kudos to Reuters for doing this series on how business is done in Russia .... unfortunately .... they are not even touching the tip of the iceberg.
Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko attends a joint news conference with European Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker (unseen) at the EU Council in Brussels, Belgium, December 16, 2015. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir
United States Vice President Joe Biden has never been one to hold his tongue. He certainly didn’t in his recent trip to Kiev. In a speech before Ukraine’s Parliament, Biden told legislators that corruption was eating Ukraine “like a cancer,” and warned Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko that Ukraine had “one more chance” to confront corruption before the United States cuts off aid.
Biden’s language was undiplomatic, but he’s right: Ukraine needs radical reforms to root out graft. After 18 months in power, Poroshenko still refuses to decisively confront corruption. It’s time for Poroshenko to either step up his fight against corruption — or step down if he won’t.
When it comes to Ukrainian corruption, the numbers speak for themselves. Over $12 billion per year disappears from the Ukrainian budget, according to an adviser to Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau. And in its most recent review of global graft, anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International ranked Ukraine 142 out of 174 countries on its Corruption Perceptions Index — below countries such as Uganda, Nicaragua and Nigeria. Ordinary Ukrainians also endure paying petty bribes in all areas of life. From vehicle registration, to getting their children into kindergarten, to obtaining needed medicine, everything connected to government has a price.
WNU Editor: With all of this corruption (plus the imploding economy and the war in the east) it is not surprising that Ukraine President Poroshenko's poll numbers are now worst than his predecessor who had to flee the country during the height of the Maidan revolution in 2014 .... Another Regime Change "Success": Ukraine President Less Popular Than State Dept-Ousted Predecessor (Zero Hedge). As I have mentioned more than once .... the conditions to produce the last revolution are now back .... and in many cases far worst than what it was 2 years ago. All that it will take is a small spark to ignite the fire all over again.
Russia exported over $15 billion worth of arms in 2015 and plans to sell similar volumes of military equipment in 2016, an official from the Russian Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation reportedly told Ria Novosti on Wednesday. The sales figures come despite several economic sanctions against Russian companies by Western powers over the Ukraine conflict.
“The plan for 2015 has been completed with the production of military equipment delivered with a total of $15.2 billion and deliveries are continuing,” the official told Ria Novosti, according to Sputnik News, adding: “Next year’s main goal is to retain the second place [after the United States] in exporting weapons in the world.”
By selling weapons at alarming levels, the U.S. is further fueling the extremism it purports to be fighting
American exceptionalism — the notion that the U.S. is somehow an exceptional country, with no parallels in the world — is largely a myth. There is, however, one way in which it is absolutely true: The U.S. sells more weapons than any other country.
The U.S. has just 5 percent of the global population, but sells more than half of its weapons. And this number is increasing.
A new congressional study found that foreign arms sales by the U.S. increased by almost $10 billion in 2014 — up 35 percent.
No other countries even come close to the U.S. in weapons sales. As much as politicians and the media fear-monger about Russia, it sold just $10.2 billion in weapons in 2014 — a decrease from 2013. This pales in comparison to the $36.2 billion in arms sales the U.S. made in the same year.
WNU Editor: Aside from Ben Norton's remarks on American exceptionalism .... which he does not understand even though he is an American (my commentary on American exceptionalism is here) .... he is spot-on correct on America's unique ability to sell weapons around the world. My prediction .... 2016 is going to be a banner year for U.S. arms exporters, and what may limit this growth will be concerns that maybe we are also selling weapons to our future enemies. On a side note .... you sometimes have to wonder on how corrupt our international institutions are .... all of this explosive growth occurred during the tenure of a President who was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.
London, Paris, Moscow, Brussels, Ankara, Madrid and New York among cities taking extra precautions for end-of-year celebrations
Brussels has cancelled its official celebrations, Paris called off an annual fireworks display on the Champs-Élysées and London increased the numbers of firearms officers on the streets as authorities across the world stepped up security measures for New Year’s Eve.
Belgian police detained six people during house searches in Brussels on Thursday in an investigation into an alleged plot to carry out an attack in the city. Earlier in the week two other people were arrested on suspicion of preparing attacks on “emblematic sites” in Brussels during the celebrations. Another man was questioned over links to last month’s Paris attacks.
As the red, white and black flag of the Iraqi government was raised over the government compound in Ramadi, Iraq, on Monday, leaders of the U.S.-led military coalition against the Islamic State faced a new question: How do they and the Iraqi military recapture that success in other cities, some of which could be even tougher to win?
Ramadi, a city of about 220,000 people, fell to the Islamic State in May 2015, after months of the militants attacking Iraqi security forces, and eventually overwhelming them and prompting survivors to flee. Iraqi military efforts to take back the city began a few months later, but it wasn’t until the last few weeks that it seemed like possession of the city, the capital of Anbar province, was poised to change.
Military And Intelligence News Briefs -- December 31, 2015
China’s vibrant military blogosphere presented a video this month revealing a missile-firing unmanned aerial vehicle in action, dropping bombs against ground targets.
The Caihong-4, or CH-4, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is a testament to the remarkable success of China’s military in copying vital high-technology weapons that currently are considered among the most cutting edge arms systems used in modern combat operations for both ground strikes and intelligence-gathering.
WNU Editor: The above Chinese drone certainly looks like a Reaper.
China's first aircraft carrier, which was renovated from an old aircraft carrier that China bought from Ukraine in 1998, seen docked at Dalian Port, in Dalian, Liaoning province, in 2012.
China is building a second aircraft carrier, with the new ship being designed and constructed domestically, the Defense Ministry said, marking the first time the government has confirmed the long-rumored project.
The vessel is being built in the northern port of Dalian and will carry Chinese-made J-15 fighter jets, the ministry said on its website, citing spokesman Col. Yang Yujun. The ship will have a displacement of approximately 50,000 tons, Yang said. The country’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, was commissioned in 2012 and built in a hull purchased from the Ukraine.
More News On China Confirming That It Is Building A Second Aircraft Carrier
Following recent tests of anti-satellite missiles and near-space hypersonic vehicles, China’s military will soon create a new Space Force within the People’s Liberation Army, a sign Beijing is preparing for future space warfare.
Military analysts say there has been no official announcement of the new space warfare unit; however, unofficial sources in China revealed the unit will be part of a new Strategic Support Forces service that will include nuclear missiles — currently under the Second Artillery Force — along with an electronic information forces, cyber warfare units and electronic and signals intelligence.
The shift to space and information warfare is part of a major military reorganization that has been underway in China for the past several years. It’s designed to transform the once ground forces-heavy PLA into a high-technology force.
WNU Editor: The Chinese are not the only ones who are investing in space warfare .... Russia Flight Tests Anti-Satellite Missile (Washington Free Beacon). More on Russia's space "warfare program" is here.
Chinese media reports suggest the J-20 is ready for production, ahead of schedule.
A report posted online by China’s Xinhua News Agency suggests that the J-20 – China’s fifth-generation stealth fighter jet – has entered the mass production stage. The evidence is a photograph of a J-20 on the tarmac, coated with yellow primer paint and bearing the serial number “2101.”
Previous versions of the J-20 have been numbered in the 2000s (with the first prototype labeled 2001 and the most recent 2017). The appearance of a number in the 2100s hints to China’s online military enthuasists that production has entered the production stage – although Xinhua cautions that the initial production run for the J-20 may be limited at first. In particular, unnamed experts cautioned that the software used in fifth-generation fighters will need additional testing, even if the body of the aircraft is finalized.
With the topic of global (im)migration getting increasingly more prominence as we get ever closer to the presidential elections, not to mention Europe's ongoing plight with the biggest refugee crisis since World War II, here is a handful of factual, and bias-free, charts summarizing the key aspects of global human mobility.
WNU Editor: I concur with the Zero Hedge's analysis .... global migration is going to be a big news story for the next few years (if not longer).
Marines will not be using robotic mules called “AlphaDogs” any time soon because the machines were deemed too noisy to be useful in a combat situation.
Boston Dynamics, the robotics company owned by Google’s parent Alphabet, has been working with DARPA, the Pentagon’s research division, to build the robots designed to carry supplies for troops.
The AlphaDog robots, also called the Legged Squad Support System (LS3), were designed to carry up to 400 pounds and provide much-needed relief for soldiers, Military.com reported.
WNU Editor: I concur .... it was too noisy.
More News On The Marine Corps Cancels Robotic Dog/Mule Project
The Aviationist blog has found a great series of images of the U.S. Navy salvaging one of its own aircraft from the Arabian Sea.
On May 12, 2015 a F/A-18F Super Hornet from the USS Theodore Roosevelt crashed into the Arabian Gulf. The two crewmen ejected and were safely rescued. The Super Hornet and the Roosevelt had been participating in anti-Islamic State operations as part of Operation Inherent Resolve. According to reports at the time, the crash was "not a result of hostile activity." The Navy has apparently ruled out pilot error and settled on mechanical failure, because two months later USNS Catawba, a salvage ship, was hauling the Super Hornet out of the Arabian Sea to find out what went wrong.
In the last few years, additive manufacturing, also known as 3-D printing, has transformed from an interesting hobby to an industry producing a wide range of products. It is on the path to causing major disruptions in global trade — and changing the international security environment. The explosion of additive manufacturing means it is virtually impossible to provide an up-to-date list of materials that can be printed, but a recent top ten list includes: metals, such as stainless, bronze, steel, gold, nickel steel, aluminum, and titanium; carbon fiber and nano-tubes; stem cells; ceramics; and food. Researchers are exploring the application of 3-D printing to fields from agriculture and biology to design and manufacturing. MIT developed a $7,000 multi-material printer than can print ten materials in the same object during a single fabrication process. As businesses learn to use these multi-material printers, the range of products they will be able to print will expand exponentially.
WNU Editor: The part of this report that caught my attention was its analysis on the implications for the military (and it is a must read) ....
.... The implications of additive manufacturing for the battlefield are immense. Researchers at the University of Virginia have 3-D-printed a drone in a single day and by adding an Android phone made it autonomous — all for $2,500. Using artificial intelligence available today, such a drone could identify a distinct object such as an aircraft or fuel truck using on board multi-spectral imaging before engaging it with an explosively formed projectile. In short, autonomous, cheap weapons systems will range for miles, hunting and engaging specific targets. Think of them as IEDs that hunt you. If aspirations for greater printing speed are met, a factory with only 100 printers and sufficient raw materials could produce 10,000 such autonomous drones a day. The implications for ground forces are obvious — thousands of drone strikes on vehicles, ammunition dumps, fuel trucks, and other soft targets. This threat will not be limited to short-range drones. Long-range air and undersea autonomous drones are being produced today, and manufacturers are competing hard to reduce the price. Thus naval and air forces will also be at risk from cheap, smart, long-range weapons.
North Korea's homegrown computer operating system mirrors its political one, according to two German researchers who have delved into the code: a go-it-alone approach, a high degree of paranoia and invasive snooping on users.
Their research, the deepest yet into the secretive state's Red Star OS, illustrates the challenges Pyongyang faces in trying to embrace the benefits of computing and the internet while keeping a tight grip on ideas and culture.
The researchers, Florian Grunow and Niklaus Schiess of German IT security company ERNW GmbH, spoke to Reuters before presenting their findings to the Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg on Sunday, a gathering of hackers and security researchers.
WNU Editor: I have experienced the major Russian and Chinese operating systems .... "groan" is the only word that comes to my mind. Software is a decidedly Western advantage ... and will probably be the case for the foreseeable future.
I have been involved in numerous computer science projects since the 1980s, as well as developing numerous web projects since 1996.
These blogs are a summation of all the information that I read and catalog pertaining to the subjects that interest me.
Protests in Egypt. Photo from Bikyamasr
