Messages In This Digest (19 Messages)

1.: U.S.-China Military Tensions Grow

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Tue Jan 19, 2010 5:58 pm (PST)

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/u-s-china-military-tensions-grow

Stop NATO
January 19, 2010

U.S.-China Military Tensions Grow
Rick Rozoff

----------
Even though the U.S. military budget is almost ten times that of China's (with a population more than four times as large) and Washington plans a record $708 million defense budget for next year compared to Russia spending less than $40 billion last year for the same, China and Russia are portrayed as threats to the U.S. and its allies. China has no troops outside its borders; Russia has a small handful in its former territories in Abkhazia, Armenia, South Ossetia and Transdniester. The U.S. has hundreds of thousands of troops stationed in six continents.

While Gates was in charge of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and responsible for almost half of international military spending he was offended that the world's most populous nation might desire to "deny others countries the ability to threaten it."
----------

On December 23 of last year Raytheon Company announced that it had received a $1.1 billion contact with Taiwan for the purchase of 200 Patriot anti-ballistic missiles. In early January the U.S. Defense Department cleared the transaction "despite opposition from rival China, where a military official proposed sanctioning U.S. firms that sell arms to the island." [1]

The sale completes a $6.5 billion weapons package approved by the previous George W. Bush administration at the end of 2008. In the words of the Asia bureau chief of Defense News, "This is the last piece that Taiwan has been waiting on." [2]

Defense News first reported on the agreement and reminded its readers that "Raytheon already won smaller contracts for Taiwan in January 2009 and in 2008 for upgrades to the Patriot systems the country already had. Those contracts were to upgrade the systems to Configuration 3, the same upgrade the company is completing for the U.S. Army."

The source also described what the enhanced Patriot capacity consisted of: "Configuration 3 is Raytheon's most advanced Patriot system and allows the use of Lockheed Martin's Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles [and] Raytheon's Guidance Enhanced Missile-Tactical [Patriot-2 upgrade] missiles...." [3]

The PAC-3 is the latest, most advanced Patriot missile design and the first capable of shooting down tactical ballistic missiles. It is the initial tier of a layered missile shield system which also includes Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), Ground Based Interceptor (GBI), Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD), Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), ship-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense equipped with Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptors, Forward Based X-Band Radar (FBXB) and Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) components. An integrated network that ranges from the battlefield to the heavens.

The system is modular and highly mobile and its batteries are thus more easily able to evade detection and attack. It also extends the range of previous Patriot versions several fold.

"[T]he PAC-3 interceptors, enhanced by [an] advanced radar and command center, are capable of protecting an area approximately seven times greater than the original Patriot system." [4]

If like the rest of the world Chinese authorities anticipated a reduction if not halt in the pace of American global military expansion with the advent of a new administration in Washington a year ago, like everyone they else have been rudely disabused of the notion.

Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei urged the United States to reconsider the Taiwan arms package in the sixth official Chinese warning in a week earlier this month, telling his nation's Xinhua News Agency that "China had strongly protested the U.S. government's recent decision to allow Raytheon Company and Lockheed Martin Corp. to sell weapons to Taiwan" and "The U.S. arms sales to Taiwan undermine China's national security." [5]

Later information added to the inventory and to China's ire when it was revealed that "the Obama Administration would soon announce the sale to Taiwan of a package worth billions of U.S. dollars including Black Hawk helicopters, anti-missile systems and plans for diesel-powered submarines in a move likely to anger China." [6]

In addition, the China Times reported that Taiwan was to obtain eight second-hand Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates from the U.S. in addition to the 200 Patriot missiles. The warships were designed in the 1970s as comparatively inexpensive alternatives to World War II-era destroyers. The new deal will double the amount of U.S. Perry-class frigates that Taiwan already possesses to 16.

They will also factor into missile defense and at a higher level, as "The island hopes to arm them with a version of the advanced Aegis Combat System (see above), which uses computers and radar to take out multiple targets, as well as sophisticated missile launch technology...." [7]

While both Washington and Taipei will present the weapons transactions as strictly defensive in nature, it is worth recalling that last autumn Taiwan conducted its "largest-ever missile test...launched from a secretive and tightly guarded base in southern Taiwan" with missiles "capable of reaching major Chinese cities." [8]

President Ma Ying-jeou observed the missile launches which "included the test-firing of a top secret, newly developed medium-range surface-to-surface missile with a range of 3,000 kilometres, capable of striking major cities in central, northern and southern China." [9]

The Patriot Advanced Capability and SM-3 interceptor missiles the U.S. is providing Taiwan could well be employed to counter a mainland Chinese counterattack or at the least protect the launch sites of Taiwanese medium range missiles which, as noted above, are capable of hitting most of China's major cities.

Beijing responded on January 11 by conducting a ground-based midcourse interceptor missile test over its territory.

Professor Tan Kaijia of the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) National Defense University told Xinhua "If the ballistic missile is regarded as a spear, now we have succeeded in building a shield for self-defense." [10]

Time Magazine characterized the significance of the test in writing: "There's no chance China's gambit will deter the U.S. from backing Taiwan....But the test does signal a ratcheting up of tensions between Beijing and Washington...." [11]

Both China and the U.S., the first in 2007 and the second the following year, with a Standard Missile-3 fired from an Aegis-class frigate in the Pacific Ocean in the American case, destroyed satellites in orbit. The dawn of space war had begun.

A January 15 feature on a Russian website titled "Possible space wars in the near future" provided background information. "It is hard to overestimate the role played by military satellite systems. Since the 1970s, an increasingly greater number of troop-control, telecommunications, target-acquisition, navigation and other processes depend on spacecraft which are therefore becoming more important...The space echelon's role is directly proportional to the development level of any given nation and its armed forces." [12]

China and Russia for years have been advocating a ban on the use of space for military purposes, annually raising the issue in the United Nations. The U.S. has just as persistently opposed the initiatives.

To comprehend the context in which recent developments have occurred, Washington has for three years increasingly and tenaciously included China and Russia with Iran and North Korea as belligerents in prospective future conflicts.

The campaign began in earnest in February of 2007 when then and still Pentagon chief Robert Gates testified before the U.S. House Armed Services Committee on the Defense Department Fiscal Year 2008 Budget Request and said among other matters:

"In addition to fighting the global war on terror, we also face the danger posed by Iran and North Korea's nuclear ambitions and the threat they pose not only to their neighbors, but globally because of their record of proliferation; the uncertain paths of China and Russia, which are both pursuing sophisticated military modernization programs; and a range of other flashpoints and challenges....We need both the ability for regular force-on-force conflicts because we don't know what's going to develop in places like Russia and China, in North Korea, in Iran and elsewhere." [13]

If it be objected that Gates was only alluding to general contingency plans, ones that could apply to any major nation, neither his comments nor any by U.S. defense officials since have mentioned fellow nuclear powers Britain, France, India and Israel in a similar vein, but have reiterated concerns about Russia and China with an alarming consistency. In fact China and Russia have been substituted for Iraq in the former axis of evil category.

Even though the U.S. military budget is almost ten times that of China's (with a population more than four times as large) and Washington plans a record $708 million defense budget for next year compared to Russia spending less than $40 billion last year for the same, China and Russia are portrayed as threats to the U.S. and its allies. China has no troops outside its borders; Russia has a small handful in its former territories in Abkhazia, Armenia, South Ossetia and Transdniester. The U.S. has hundreds of thousands of troops stationed in six continents.

Russia and China both reacted harshly to Gates' statements in February of 2007 and only three days afterward, with Gates in the audience, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech at the annual Munich Security Conference in which he warned:

"[W]hat is a unipolar world? However one might embellish this term, at the end of the day it refers to one type of situation, namely one centre of authority, one centre of force, one centre of decision-making.

"It is world in which there is one master, one sovereign. And at the end of the day this is pernicious not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within."

"Unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions have not resolved any problems. Moreover, they have caused new human tragedies and created new centres of tension. Judge for yourselves: wars as well as local and regional conflicts have not diminished....And no less people perish in these conflicts - even more are dying than before. Significantly more, significantly more!

"Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force - military force - in international relations, force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts."

"One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations...." [14]

The warning was not heeded in Washington.

Three months later the Pentagon chief resumed his earlier accusations. In May of 2007 the Defense Department issued its annual report on China's military capability, citing "continuing efforts to project Chinese power beyond its immediate region and to develop high-technology systems that can challenge the best in the world."

"U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says some of China's efforts cause him concern."

The report said "China is pursuing long-term, comprehensive transformation of its military forces" to "enable it to project power and deny other countries the ability to threaten it." [15] While Gates was in charge of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and responsible for almost half of international military spending he was offended that the world's most populous nation might desire to "deny others countries the ability to threaten it."

A year after Gates linked China and Russia with surviving "axis of evil" suspects Iran and North Korea, National Director of Intelligence Michael McConnell singled out China, Russia and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as the main threats to the United States, even more than al-Qaeda.

The Voice of Russia responded to McDonnell's accusations in a commentary that included these excerpts:

"Russia has demanded an explanation from America over a report by the Director of American national intelligence in which Russia, China, Iraq, Iran, North Korea and al-Qaida are described as sources of strategic threats to the U.S....Quite possibly, the report by the U.S intelligence community amounts to accounting for the staggering sums of money that is allocated yearly for its upkeep. There could be other reasons to explain why Russia has been included among states posing a threat to America." [16]

Gates has remained as defense secretary for the new American administration and so has the anti-Chinese and anti-Russian rhetoric.

On May 1 of last year Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that "The Obama administration is working to improve deteriorating U.S. relations with a number of Latin American nations to counter growing Iranian, Chinese and Russian influence in the Western Hemisphere...." [17] The month after she spoke those words a military coup was staged in Honduras and two weeks after that the U.S. secured the use of seven military bases in Colombia.

In September Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair issued the U.S.'s quadrennial National Intelligence Strategy report which said "Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea pose the greatest challenges to the United States' national interests. [18]

Agence France-Presse said that "The United States on [September 15] put emerging superpower China and former Cold War foe Russia alongside Iran and North Korea on a list of the four main nations challenging American interests" and quoted from Blair's report:

China was fingered for its "increasing natural resource-focused diplomacy and military modernization."

"Russia is a US partner in important initiatives such as securing fissile
material and combating nuclear terrorism, but it may continue to seek avenues for reasserting power and influence in ways that complicate US interests." [19]

China is not allowed to deny other nations the ability to threaten it and Russia is not permitted to complicate U.S. interests.

The trend, ominous in its relentlessness, continues into this year.

The vice president of Lockheed Martin's Missile Defense Systems, John Holly, touted his company's role in the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System - components of which are being delivered to Taiwan - as "the shining star" of Lockheed's interceptor missile portfolio, and according to a newspaper in the city which hosts the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency "Pointing to missile programs in North Korea, Iran, Russia and China, Holly said, 'the world is not a very safe world ... and it is incumbent upon us in industry to provide [the Pentagon] with the best capabilities.'" [20]

Three days afterward the Pentagon's Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs Wallace Gregson "voiced doubts about China's insistence that its use of space is for peaceful means" and stated "The Chinese have stated that they oppose the militarization of space. Their actions seem to indicate the contrary intention." [21]

The next day Admiral Robert Willard, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, stated in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee that China's "powerful economic engine is also funding a military modernization program that has raised concerns in the region — a concern also shared by the U.S. Pacific Command." [22]

The U.S. Navy has six fleets and eleven aircraft carrier strike groups in or available for deployment to all parts of the world, but China with only a "brown water" navy off its own coast is a cause for concern to the U.S.

As Alan Mackinnon, the chairman of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, wrote last September:

"The world of war is today dominated by a single superpower. In military terms the United States sits astride the world like a giant Colossus. As a country with only five per cent of the world's population it accounts for almost 50 per cent of global arms spending.

"Its 11 naval carrier fleets patrol every ocean and its 909 military bases are scattered strategically across every continent. No other country has reciprocal bases on US territory - it would be unthinkable and unconstitutional. It is 20 years since the end of the Cold War and the United States and its allies face no significant military threat today. Why then have we not had the hoped-for peace dividend? Why does the world's most powerful nation continue to increase its military budget, now over $1.2 trillion a year in real terms? What threat is all this supposed to counter?

"The US response has been largely military - the expansion of NATO and the
encirclement of Russia and China in a ring of hostile bases and alliances. And continuing pressure to isolate and weaken Iran." [23]

Observations to be kept in the forefront of people's minds as China is increasingly presented as a security challenge - and a strategic threat - to the world's sole military superpower.

Related articles:

U.S. Expands Asian NATO Against China, Russia
Stop NATO, October 16, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/u-s-expands-asian-nato-against-china-russia

Broader Strategy: West's Afghan War Targets Russia, China, Iran
Stop NATO, September 8, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/broader-strategy-wests-afghan-war-targets-russia-china-iran

U.S. Accelerates First Strike Global Missile Shield System
Stop NATO, August 19, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/u-s-accelerates-first-strike-global-missile-shield-system

Australian Military Buildup And The Rise Of Asian NATO
Stop NATO, May 6, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/australian-military-buildup-and-the-rise-of-asian-nato

1) Reuters, January 7, 2010
2) Ibid
3) Defense News, December 23, 2009
4) http://www.missilethreat.com/missiledefensesystems/id.41/system_detail.asp
5) Russian Information Agency Novosti, January 9, 2010
6) Taiwan News, January 4, 2010
7) Agence France-Presse, January 11, 2010
8) Radio Taiwan International, October 14, 2009
9) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, October 14, 2009
10) Asian Times, January 20, 2010
11) Time, January 13, 2010
12) Russian Information Agency Novosti, January 15, 2010
13) http://www.sras.org/news2.phtml?m=908
14) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/12/AR2007021200555.html
15) Voice of America News, May 26, 2007
16) Voice of Russia, February 8, 2008
17) Associated Press, May 1, 2009
18) Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, September 16, 2009
19) Agence France-Presse, September 15, 2009
20) Huntsville Times, January 10, 2010
21) Agence France-Presse, January 13, 2010
22) Washington Post, January 14, 2010
23) Scottish Left Review, November 17, 2009
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2.: U.S. Military Buildup To Overwhelm Guam

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Tue Jan 19, 2010 6:18 pm (PST)

http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/asia/Guam-Braces-for-Military-Buildup-82048832.html

Voice of America News
January 19, 2010

Guam Braces for Military Buildup
Four years from now, the U.S. military plans to transfer thousands of Marines from the Japanese island of Okinawa. The move is part of a larger military realignment in the region and it is one that could reshape the future of the U.S. territory
Akiko Fujita

-The U.S. and Japan have pledged $10 billion to build or renovate facilities for the Marines but they have not guaranteed funds for infrastructure projects in the civilian community. Senator Judy Guthertz, who oversees the legislative committee on the buildup, says that is partly because Guam's hands are tied, politically. It does not have a vote in Congress, and Guamanians cannot vote for President.
-The military already controls about a third of the island, and will need to acquire more land for the buildup, which goes beyond the Marines. The Army is building a missile defense system on the island and the Air Force is adding more drones. The Navy is expanding its port so it can accommodate visiting aircraft carriers.

Guam: Residents on the Pacific island of Guam are bracing for big changes. Four years from now, the U.S. military plans to transfer thousands of Marines from the Japanese island of Okinawa. The move is part of a larger military realignment in the region and it is one that could reshape the future of the U.S. territory.

All over Guam, the big topic of discussion is the military - and the U.S. Marines moving to the U.S. territory from the Japanese island of Okinawa.
....
Eight thousand Marines are expected to move to Guam over the next four years. The transfer is part of the Pentagon's effort to reduce the troop numbers on Okinawa, where the U.S. has maintained bases since World War II.
....
Jim Espaldon is a senator in the territorial legislature and helps oversee the island's infrastructure. He says Guam is not ready for the buildup. He points to an environmental impact statement that says the buildup will attract thousands of military family members and construction workers. The population could increase by 40 percent.

"We are not ready and we are getting no solid assistance from our federal government," he said.

Espaldon says the population surge will overwhelm the island's only public hospital, cause gridlock on major roads and strain the only port. Container shipments there are expected to jump from 100,000 to 600,000 a year, once construction for the buildup begins.

U.S. troops have been on the tropical island for more than a century. After World War II, and well into the 1980s, the island was seen as an outpost of the Cold War and at times more than 20,000 troops were based there. But starting in the 1990s, the Department of Defense closed bases, reduced troop numbers and shut down old facilities. Now there are about 15,000 troops and military family members on the island.

The U.S. and Japan have pledged $10 billion to build or renovate facilities for the Marines but they have not guaranteed funds for infrastructure projects in the civilian community. Senator Judy Guthertz, who oversees the legislative committee on the buildup, says that is partly because Guam's hands are tied, politically. It does not have a vote in Congress, and Guamanians cannot vote for President.

"Guam is U.S. territory. We fly the U.S. flag, we proudly fly the flag. We're patriotic Americans but oftentimes we're the forgotten Americans," said Guthertz.
....
The military already controls about a third of the island, and will need to acquire more land for the buildup, which goes beyond the Marines. The Army is building a missile defense system on the island and the Air Force is adding more drones. The Navy is expanding its port so it can accommodate visiting aircraft carriers.

University of Guam Professor Victoria Lola Leon Guerrero says that expansion threatens the native Chamorro culture. She worries the military will take ancestral land from Chamorro families.

"These families and their homes are not visible on these maps but they live there. That is their land. They have their homes built. They are being approached by the military as we speak, to give up their land," she said.
....
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3.: Pentagon Builds Stronger Military Ties With India

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Tue Jan 19, 2010 6:28 pm (PST)

http://en.rian.ru/world/20100119/157617392.html

Russian Information Agency Novosti
January 19, 2010

U.S. seeks closer military ties with India

NEW DELHI: U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in Delhi on a two-day visit, is looking to forge closer military links with India, national media reported on Tuesday.

According to The Times of India, Gates met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh "amidst a desire by the U.S. to step up military cooperation and see that India and Pakistan join hands to combat terrorism."

Gates will hold substantive talks with Defense Minister A K Antony on Wednesday and is expected "to push a reluctant India to sign a bilateral Logistics Support Agreement and a communication sharing pact," the paper said.

He said the parties would also discuss joint military exercises and the development of the arms trade.
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4.: Croatian President Threatens Military Intervention In Bosnia

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Tue Jan 19, 2010 7:41 pm (PST)

http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/croatian-president-threatens-bosnian-serbs

Radio Netherlands
January 19, 2010

Croatian president threatens Bosnian-Serbs

Outgoing Croatian President Stjepan Mesic is threatening military action if the Bosnian Serbs go further with their attempts at independence. He was speaking to Croatian media a month before he is due to stand down.

The Serb part of Bosnia-Herzegovina is preparing to hold a referendum on independence. The move has led to an increase of tensions with Bosnia's other ethnic groups, the Muslims and ethnic Croats.

Mr Mesic believes that a referendum would breach the Dayton agreement which ended the Bosnian civil war in 1995. He argues that Croatia, as one of the signatories of Dayton, has a duty to see the accord is observed.

It is unclear what position Croatia's incoming president, Ivo Josipovic, will adopt on the issue. The international community's High Representative for Bosnia, Valentin Inzko, has already come out against the plans for a Bosnian-Serb referendum.
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5.: Ukrainian Election Proves "Orange Revolution" A Failure: Analyst

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Tue Jan 19, 2010 7:47 pm (PST)

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/indepth/2010-01/20/c_13143889.htm

Xinhua News Agency
January 20, 2010

Ukraine polls prove Orange Revolution failure, Ukrainian analyst says

KIEV: The first round of Ukraine's presidential election proved the 2004 Orange Revolution a total failure, a leading Ukrainian political analyst said Tuesday.

Results of Sunday's vote conformed to pre-election opinion polls and most analysts' expectations, Vladimir Kornilov, head of the Ukrainian branch of the Institute of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), told Xinhua.

In Ukraine's first vote since the Orange Revolution, opposition leader Viktor Yanukovich scored 35.32 percent, while his main challenger, Prime Minister Julia Tymoshenko garnered 25.05 percent. They will face each other in a close run-off on Feb. 7.

Third place went to former economic minister Sergei Tigipko with 13.06 percent, whose supporters are now crucial to the results of the second round, and incumbent President Viktor Yushchenko, one of the architects of the Orange Revolution, only got a miserable 5.45 percent of the vote.

The outcome suggested Yushchenko's domestic and foreign policies were a failure, Kornilov said.

Yushchenko was swept to power in the Orange Revolution, which raised hopes for a new era for the ex-Soviet republic of 46 million people. Yanukovich, a Kremlin-backed candidate back in the 2004 presidential race, was denied victory after alleged electoral frauds.

In fact, the Orange Revolution itself has faded long before Sunday's presidential election, Kornilov said.

Ukrainians have been frustrated at the country's political in-fighting and ailing economy during Yushchenko's tenure, a fact that has been demonstrated by the two parliamentary elections held after the Orange Revolution, he said.

Whoever wins the presidency will change Ukraine's domestic and foreign policies, he added.

Kornilov said "Ukraine is set to restore multilateral foreign policies and improve relations (with) Russia."

Yanukovich, leader of the Regions Party, who draws the bulk of his support from the Russian-speaking areas of the industrial east and the south, has promised Ukrainians economic revival, new jobs, pay raises, judicial reforms and tax-free policies for small enterprises for five years.
....
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6.: Opposition: Hague Court To Rule Georgia Aggressor In Caucasus War

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Tue Jan 19, 2010 7:56 pm (PST)

http://www.today.az/news/georgia/59711.html

Georgia Times
January 19, 2010

Laborites are afraid Hague Tribunal will recognize Georgia as aggressor

The Hague Tribunal started investigation of circumstances of the war in South Ossetia in August 2008, said Nestan Kirtadze, the Labour Party Secretary for International Issues, in her interview to Versia [Georgian newspaper].

She added that investigators from the Hague would visit Georgia soon.

They "had to start the investigation after the report of Hedi Tagliavini's Commission."

This Commission, also called the "mission of truth", called Georgia guilty of unleashing the 5-day war.

Kirtadze cannot rule out at the international level Georgia will "be called not a victim, but an aggressor."

"Unfortunately, we'll have to pay much for the myths and legends connected with the epoch after the 'Rose Revolution,'" she said.

She also called reasonable the establishing of good-neighborly relations with Russia.
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7.: U.S.-Trained Georgian Troops Prepare For Afghan War

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Tue Jan 19, 2010 7:59 pm (PST)

http://rustavi2.com/news/news_text.php?id_news=35287&pg=1&im=main&ct=0&wth=

Rustavi2
January 19, 2010

Defense Ministry batallion prepares for Afghanistan peace mission

A Georgian battalion will leave for Afghanistan by the end of March.

The 31th batallion of the Ministry of Defence is undergoing special training in Germany at the moment.

Defence Minister Bacho Akhalaia spoke about the details of Georgia`s participation in the international peace mission.

He said Georgian peacekeepers would leave for Afghanistan after returning home from Germany.
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8.: Latest U.S. Missile Strike Kills Six In Pakistan

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Tue Jan 19, 2010 8:13 pm (PST)

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60I2OI20100119

Reuters
January 19, 2010

Suspected U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, 6 killed
Haji Mujtaba

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan: A suspected U.S. drone aircraft fired two missiles into Pakistan's North Waziristan region on the Afghan border on Tuesday, killing six militants, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

The United States has stepped up its attacks by pilotless drones in Pakistan since a suicide bomber killed seven Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives at a U.S. base in eastern Afghanistan on December 30.

The drone strikes are a source of friction between the United States and its ally Pakistan, which says they are a violation of its sovereignty.

The latest drone strike targeted a house in a village in the Datta Khel district, 35 km (20 miles) west of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan....

"One missile hit a compound and the other hit a vehicle outside it. Six militants were killed," one of the Pakistani officials said. The death toll had initially been put at three.
up bomb attacks in towns and cities in response.
....
(Writing by Augustine Anthony; Editing by Robert Birsel and Paul Tait)===========================
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9.: Correct Version: U.S.-China Military Tensions Grow

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Tue Jan 19, 2010 8:24 pm (PST)

[$708 billion for $708 million]

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/u-s-china-military-tensions-grow

Stop NATO
January 19, 2010

U.S.-China Military Tensions Grow
Rick Rozoff

----------
Even though the U.S. military budget is almost ten times that of China's (with a population more than four times as large) and Washington plans a record $708 billion defense budget for next year compared to Russia spending less than $40 billion last year for the same, China and Russia are portrayed as threats to the U.S. and its allies. China has no troops outside its borders; Russia has a small handful in its former territories in Abkhazia, Armenia, South Ossetia and Transdniester. The U.S. has hundreds of thousands of troops stationed in six continents.

While Gates was in charge of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and responsible for almost half of international military spending he was offended that the world's most populous nation might desire to "deny others countries the ability to threaten it."
----------

On December 23 of last year Raytheon Company announced that it had received a $1.1 billion contact with Taiwan for the purchase of 200 Patriot anti-ballistic missiles. In early January the U.S. Defense Department cleared the transaction "despite opposition from rival China, where a military official proposed sanctioning U.S. firms that sell arms to the island." [1]

The sale completes a $6.5 billion weapons package approved by the previous George W. Bush administration at the end of 2008. In the words of the Asia bureau chief of Defense News, "This is the last piece that Taiwan has been waiting on." [2]

Defense News first reported on the agreement and reminded its readers that "Raytheon already won smaller contracts for Taiwan in January 2009 and in 2008 for upgrades to the Patriot systems the country already had. Those contracts were to upgrade the systems to Configuration 3, the same upgrade the company is completing for the U.S. Army."

The source also described what the enhanced Patriot capacity consisted of: "Configuration 3 is Raytheon's most advanced Patriot system and allows the use of Lockheed Martin's Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles [and] Raytheon's Guidance Enhanced Missile-Tactical [Patriot-2 upgrade] missiles...." [3]

The PAC-3 is the latest, most advanced Patriot missile design and the first capable of shooting down tactical ballistic missiles. It is the initial tier of a layered missile shield system which also includes Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), Ground Based Interceptor (GBI), Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD), Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), ship-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense equipped with Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptors, Forward Based X-Band Radar (FBXB) and Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) components. An integrated network that ranges from the battlefield to the heavens.

The system is modular and highly mobile and its batteries are thus more easily able to evade detection and attack. It also extends the range of previous Patriot versions several fold.

"[T]he PAC-3 interceptors, enhanced by [an] advanced radar and command center, are capable of protecting an area approximately seven times greater than the original Patriot system." [4]

If like the rest of the world Chinese authorities anticipated a reduction if not halt in the pace of American global military expansion with the advent of a new administration in Washington a year ago, like everyone they else have been rudely disabused of the notion.

Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei urged the United States to reconsider the Taiwan arms package in the sixth official Chinese warning in a week earlier this month, telling his nation's Xinhua News Agency that "China had strongly protested the U.S. government's recent decision to allow Raytheon Company and Lockheed Martin Corp. to sell weapons to Taiwan" and "The U.S. arms sales to Taiwan undermine China's national security." [5]

Later information added to the inventory and to China's ire when it was revealed that "the Obama Administration would soon announce the sale to Taiwan of a package worth billions of U.S. dollars including Black Hawk helicopters, anti-missile systems and plans for diesel-powered submarines in a move likely to anger China." [6]

In addition, the China Times reported that Taiwan was to obtain eight second-hand Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates from the U.S. in addition to the 200 Patriot missiles. The warships were designed in the 1970s as comparatively inexpensive alternatives to World War II-era destroyers. The new deal will double the amount of U.S. Perry-class frigates that Taiwan already possesses to 16.

They will also factor into missile defense and at a higher level, as "The island hopes to arm them with a version of the advanced Aegis Combat System (see above), which uses computers and radar to take out multiple targets, as well as sophisticated missile launch technology...." [7]

While both Washington and Taipei will present the weapons transactions as strictly defensive in nature, it is worth recalling that last autumn Taiwan conducted its "largest-ever missile test...launched from a secretive and tightly guarded base in southern Taiwan" with missiles "capable of reaching major Chinese cities." [8]

President Ma Ying-jeou observed the missile launches which "included the test-firing of a top secret, newly developed medium-range surface-to-surface missile with a range of 3,000 kilometres, capable of striking major cities in central, northern and southern China." [9]

The Patriot Advanced Capability and SM-3 interceptor missiles the U.S. is providing Taiwan could well be employed to counter a mainland Chinese counterattack or at the least protect the launch sites of Taiwanese medium range missiles which, as noted above, are capable of hitting most of China's major cities.

Beijing responded on January 11 by conducting a ground-based midcourse interceptor missile test over its territory.

Professor Tan Kaijia of the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) National Defense University told Xinhua "If the ballistic missile is regarded as a spear, now we have succeeded in building a shield for self-defense." [10]

Time Magazine characterized the significance of the test in writing: "There's no chance China's gambit will deter the U.S. from backing Taiwan....But the test does signal a ratcheting up of tensions between Beijing and Washington...." [11]

Both China and the U.S., the first in 2007 and the second the following year, with a Standard Missile-3 fired from an Aegis-class frigate in the Pacific Ocean in the American case, destroyed satellites in orbit. The dawn of space war had begun.

A January 15 feature on a Russian website titled "Possible space wars in the near future" provided background information. "It is hard to overestimate the role played by military satellite systems. Since the 1970s, an increasingly greater number of troop-control, telecommunications, target-acquisition, navigation and other processes depend on spacecraft which are therefore becoming more important...The space echelon's role is directly proportional to the development level of any given nation and its armed forces." [12]

China and Russia for years have been advocating a ban on the use of space for military purposes, annually raising the issue in the United Nations. The U.S. has just as persistently opposed the initiatives.

To comprehend the context in which recent developments have occurred, Washington has for three years increasingly and tenaciously included China and Russia with Iran and North Korea as belligerents in prospective future conflicts.

The campaign began in earnest in February of 2007 when then and still Pentagon chief Robert Gates testified before the U.S. House Armed Services Committee on the Defense Department Fiscal Year 2008 Budget Request and said among other matters:

"In addition to fighting the global war on terror, we also face the danger posed by Iran and North Korea's nuclear ambitions and the threat they pose not only to their neighbors, but globally because of their record of proliferation; the uncertain paths of China and Russia, which are both pursuing sophisticated military modernization programs; and a range of other flashpoints and challenges....We need both the ability for regular force-on-force conflicts because we don't know what's going to develop in places like Russia and China, in North Korea, in Iran and elsewhere." [13]

If it be objected that Gates was only alluding to general contingency plans, ones that could apply to any major nation, neither his comments nor any by U.S. defense officials since have mentioned fellow nuclear powers Britain, France, India and Israel in a similar vein, but have reiterated concerns about Russia and China with an alarming consistency. In fact China and Russia have been substituted for Iraq in the former axis of evil category.

Even though the U.S. military budget is almost ten times that of China's (with a population more than four times as large) and Washington plans a record $708 billion defense budget for next year compared to Russia spending less than $40 billion last year for the same, China and Russia are portrayed as threats to the U.S. and its allies. China has no troops outside its borders; Russia has a small handful in its former territories in Abkhazia, Armenia, South Ossetia and Transdniester. The U.S. has hundreds of thousands of troops stationed in six continents.

Russia and China both reacted harshly to Gates' statements in February of 2007 and only three days afterward, with Gates in the audience, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech at the annual Munich Security Conference in which he warned:

"[W]hat is a unipolar world? However one might embellish this term, at the end of the day it refers to one type of situation, namely one centre of authority, one centre of force, one centre of decision-making.

"It is world in which there is one master, one sovereign. And at the end of the day this is pernicious not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within."

"Unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions have not resolved any problems. Moreover, they have caused new human tragedies and created new centres of tension. Judge for yourselves: wars as well as local and regional conflicts have not diminished....And no less people perish in these conflicts - even more are dying than before. Significantly more, significantly more!

"Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force - military force - in international relations, force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts."

"One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations...." [14]

The warning was not heeded in Washington.

Three months later the Pentagon chief resumed his earlier accusations. In May of 2007 the Defense Department issued its annual report on China's military capability, citing "continuing efforts to project Chinese power beyond its immediate region and to develop high-technology systems that can challenge the best in the world."

"U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says some of China's efforts cause him concern."

The report said "China is pursuing long-term, comprehensive transformation of its military forces" to "enable it to project power and deny other countries the ability to threaten it." [15] While Gates was in charge of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and responsible for almost half of international military spending he was offended that the world's most populous nation might desire to "deny others countries the ability to threaten it."

A year after Gates linked China and Russia with surviving "axis of evil" suspects Iran and North Korea, National Director of Intelligence Michael McConnell singled out China, Russia and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as the main threats to the United States, even more than al-Qaeda.

The Voice of Russia responded to McDonnell's accusations in a commentary that included these excerpts:

"Russia has demanded an explanation from America over a report by the Director of American national intelligence in which Russia, China, Iraq, Iran, North Korea and al-Qaida are described as sources of strategic threats to the U.S....Quite possibly, the report by the U.S intelligence community amounts to accounting for the staggering sums of money that is allocated yearly for its upkeep. There could be other reasons to explain why Russia has been included among states posing a threat to America." [16]

Gates has remained as defense secretary for the new American administration and so has the anti-Chinese and anti-Russian rhetoric.

On May 1 of last year Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that "The Obama administration is working to improve deteriorating U.S. relations with a number of Latin American nations to counter growing Iranian, Chinese and Russian influence in the Western Hemisphere...." [17] The month after she spoke those words a military coup was staged in Honduras and two weeks after that the U.S. secured the use of seven military bases in Colombia.

In September Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair issued the U.S.'s quadrennial National Intelligence Strategy report which said "Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea pose the greatest challenges to the United States' national interests. [18]

Agence France-Presse said that "The United States on [September 15] put emerging superpower China and former Cold War foe Russia alongside Iran and North Korea on a list of the four main nations challenging American interests" and quoted from Blair's report:

China was fingered for its "increasing natural resource-focused diplomacy and military modernization."

"Russia is a US partner in important initiatives such as securing fissile
material and combating nuclear terrorism, but it may continue to seek avenues for reasserting power and influence in ways that complicate US interests." [19]

China is not allowed to deny other nations the ability to threaten it and Russia is not permitted to complicate U.S. interests.

The trend, ominous in its relentlessness, continues into this year.

The vice president of Lockheed Martin's Missile Defense Systems, John Holly, touted his company's role in the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System - components of which are being delivered to Taiwan - as "the shining star" of Lockheed's interceptor missile portfolio, and according to a newspaper in the city which hosts the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency "Pointing to missile programs in North Korea, Iran, Russia and China, Holly said, 'the world is not a very safe world ... and it is incumbent upon us in industry to provide [the Pentagon] with the best capabilities.'" [20]

Three days afterward the Pentagon's Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs Wallace Gregson "voiced doubts about China's insistence that its use of space is for peaceful means" and stated "The Chinese have stated that they oppose the militarization of space. Their actions seem to indicate the contrary intention." [21]

The next day Admiral Robert Willard, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, stated in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee that China's "powerful economic engine is also funding a military modernization program that has raised concerns in the region — a concern also shared by the U.S. Pacific Command." [22]

The U.S. Navy has six fleets and eleven aircraft carrier strike groups in or available for deployment to all parts of the world, but China with only a "brown water" navy off its own coast is a cause for concern to the U.S.

As Alan Mackinnon, the chairman of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, wrote last September:

"The world of war is today dominated by a single superpower. In military terms the United States sits astride the world like a giant Colossus. As a country with only five per cent of the world's population it accounts for almost 50 per cent of global arms spending.

"Its 11 naval carrier fleets patrol every ocean and its 909 military bases are scattered strategically across every continent. No other country has reciprocal bases on US territory - it would be unthinkable and unconstitutional. It is 20 years since the end of the Cold War and the United States and its allies face no significant military threat today. Why then have we not had the hoped-for peace dividend? Why does the world's most powerful nation continue to increase its military budget, now over $1.2 trillion a year in real terms? What threat is all this supposed to counter?

"The US response has been largely military - the expansion of NATO and the
encirclement of Russia and China in a ring of hostile bases and alliances. And continuing pressure to isolate and weaken Iran." [23]

Observations to be kept in the forefront of people's minds as China is increasingly presented as a security challenge - and a strategic threat - to the world's sole military superpower.

Related articles:

U.S. Expands Asian NATO Against China, Russia
Stop NATO, October 16, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/u-s-expands-asian-nato-against-china-russia

Broader Strategy: West's Afghan War Targets Russia, China, Iran
Stop NATO, September 8, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/broader-strategy-wests-afghan-war-targets-russia-china-iran

U.S. Accelerates First Strike Global Missile Shield System
Stop NATO, August 19, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/u-s-accelerates-first-strike-global-missile-shield-system

Australian Military Buildup And The Rise Of Asian NATO
Stop NATO, May 6, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/australian-military-buildup-and-the-rise-of-asian-nato

1) Reuters, January 7, 2010
2) Ibid
3) Defense News, December 23, 2009
4) http://www.missilethreat.com/missiledefensesystems/id.41/system_detail.asp
5) Russian Information Agency Novosti, January 9, 2010
6) Taiwan News, January 4, 2010
7) Agence France-Presse, January 11, 2010
8) Radio Taiwan International, October 14, 2009
9) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, October 14, 2009
10) Asian Times, January 20, 2010
11) Time, January 13, 2010
12) Russian Information Agency Novosti, January 15, 2010
13) http://www.sras.org/news2.phtml?m=908
14) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/12/AR2007021200555.html
15) Voice of America News, May 26, 2007
16) Voice of Russia, February 8, 2008
17) Associated Press, May 1, 2009
18) Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, September 16, 2009
19) Agence France-Presse, September 15, 2009
20) Huntsville Times, January 10, 2010
21) Agence France-Presse, January 13, 2010
22) Washington Post, January 14, 2010
23) Scottish Left Review, November 17, 2009
===========================
Stop NATO
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10.: NATO Fighters Shadow Russian Bombers Over Barents Sea

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Wed Jan 20, 2010 5:31 am (PST)

http://www.barentsobserver.com/russian-bombers-shadowed-by-nato-aircrafts.4722893-116321.html

Barents Observer
January 20, 2010

Russian bombers shadowed by NATO aircrafts

Flying outside Norway's northern airspace, two Russian strategic bombers were shadowed by six NATO fighters on Tuesday.

The two Russian TU-95 Bear strategic bombers spent about 14 hours in the air after they took off from the Engels Airbase on a northbound flight towards the Barents Sea, reports RIA Novosti.

Outside Norwegian