Tag: United States

U.S. headed for war with China, warns top Beijing academic

Bob Unruh – February 7, 2021

A prominent Beijing scholar on international relations is warning that without a “new stability” in China’s relationship with the United States, “there will be war.”

“It cannot be taken for granted and fantasized that conflict will never erupt between the two,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations at Renmin University.

A transcript of his speech at the National Institute of Development and Strategy of Renmin University was posted Monday on Guancha, a news site affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute.

He said the stability that the U.S. and China have had in the past is gone.

“So there must be new strategic stability which will be achieved by being practical, sufficiently focused, and through specific and important proposals, dialogues or negotiations,” he insisted.

“I think the trend of China-U.S. relations after the U.S. election can be influenced or shaped by China to a large extent,” he said. “Therefore, China’s strategies and policies, as well as appropriate adjustments to these strategic policies, are very important. The current situation of China and the U.S. determines that it is impossible for the two sides to significantly back down from their confrontation or rivalry.”

https://www.wnd.com

STRATCOM Commander: ‘Real Possibility’ of Nuclear War With China or Russia

Sandy Fitzgerald – February 03, 2021

There is a “real possibility” that a regional crisis with either China or Russia could escalate to nuclear war, the head of U.S. Strategic Command is warning in a call for federal and military leaders to change their approach to nuclear deterrence.

“There is a real possibility that a regional crisis with Russia or China could escalate quickly to a conflict involving nuclear weapons, if they perceived a conventional loss would threaten the regime or state,” STRATCOM Commander Adm. Charles Richard wrote in the February issue of “Proceedings,” the monthly magazine for the U.S. Naval Institute. “Consequently, the U.S. military must shift its principal assumption from ‘nuclear employment is not possible’ to ‘nuclear employment is a very real possibility,’ and act to meet and deter that reality.”

He also warned that China and Russia are beginning to “aggressively challenge international norms and global peace using instruments of power and threats of force in ways not seen since the height of the Cold War. He also cited investment in advanced arms, such as nuclear weapons, as well as a rise in cyberattacks and threats in space.

Meanwhile, recent actions from both countries will “increase the risk of great power crisis or conflict” if U.S. officials leave the matter unchecked.

Russia is “aggressively modernizing” its nuclear arsenal, Richard wrote, and China is on a “trajectory to be a strategic peer,” so it shouldn’t be dismissed as a lesser threat.

https://www.newsmax.com

Israel Defense Forces to Plan Attack on Iran’s Nuclear Program

Amanda Casanova – January 15, 2021

The Israel Defense Forces is reportedly planning an attack on Iran’s nuclear program.

According to the Israel Hayom Daily, the IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi has asked for three proposals to take down Iran’s nuclear program. The newspaper said one of the proposals is a military effort, but also an expensive option.

The Times of Israel reports that Iran has increased the enriching of uranium to a 20 percent concentration last week. In 2015, a nuclear deal capped the enriching of uranium to a 4.5 percent concentration, the BBC reports.

Low-enriched uranium, between 3 to 5 percent concentration, is used to make fuel for commercial power plants. Concentrations of 20 percent and more is largely used in research reactors, and concentrations of 90 percent and more are considered weapons-grade uranium.

Likud minister Tzachi Hanegbi said recently that Israel could attack Iran’s nuclear program if the United States rejoins the nuclear deal, an agreement that US President-elect Joe Biden has said he plans to approve.

“If the United States government rejoins the nuclear deal — and that seems to be the stated policy as of now — the practical result will be that Israel will again be alone against Iran, which by the end of the deal will have received a green light from the world, including the United States, to continue with its nuclear weapons program,” Hanegbi said in an interview with Kan news.

Former president Barack Obama signed the Iranian nuclear deal with world powers in 2015, but in 2018, President Donald Trump withdrew from the accord and imposed economic sanctions on Iran.

Biden has indicated that he would negotiate with Tehran if Washington returns to the deal, and Iran has said it would welcome the return of the Americans to the deal, but only after the economic sanctions are lifted.

https://www.christianheadlines.com

Roe’s ‘Deadly Legacy’: 62,504,904 Abortions Since 1973, New Report Says

Michael Foust – January 22, 2021

More than 62 million abortions have been performed in the United States since the infamous Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, according to a new report from National Right to Life that mourns the lives lost while celebrating the decline in the abortion rate in recent years.

The “State of Abortion in the United States” report, released Jan. 21, estimates that 62,504,904 abortions have been performed in the U.S. since the Supreme Court legalized abortion on demand throughout the nation via a pair of rulings: Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. They were handed down on Jan. 22, 1973.

The report reached the estimate using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute.

Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, said pro-lifers have reason to be optimistic, despite the horrific number. That’s partially because the annual number of abortions has been steadily declining since 1990, when there were 1,608,600 abortions, according to Guttmacher. In 2013, the annual number of abortions fell below 1 million, to 958,700. In 2015, the annual number of abortions fell below 900,000 (to 899,500).

The pro-life community, Tobias said, is “moving our nation away from Roe and Doe’s deadly legacy.”

“This drop in numbers can be traced to a number of factors, but among them are the efforts by National Right to Life and its network of state affiliates to enact protective laws that provide legal protection to unborn children and offer hope and help to their mothers,” Tobias wrote in the report. “These legislative efforts are at the very heart of our work, and they are one of the keys to ending abortion in the United States.

https://www.christianheadlines.com

From ‘Dangerous Fantasy’ to Reality in Seven Years: EU Reveals ‘Uniformed Service’

Oliver JJ Lane – January 12, 2021

Less than seven years after British Eurosceptics were laughed at for expressing concerns about a coming European Union army, the bloc has revealed the official uniform of its new ‘standing corps’, as the first of 10,000 recruits prepare to deploy to the field.

Frontex, the European Union’s combined border force and coastguard, revealed the new uniform in a social media post on Monday, showing off the navy uniform complete with EU-flag identification patches and military side cap. The force said: “For the first time, the European Union has its own uniformed service – the European Border and Coast Guard standing corps.”

Previously, officers seconded to Frontex from national forces denoted their new role by wearing an armband with a symbol of the European political project — a ring of gold stars on blue — on their right arm.

The “troops” of Frontex in their own European uniforms comes less than seven years after Brexiteers were told they believed a “dangerous fantasy” for saying the European Union was moving towards having its own armed forces — of which the paramilitary Frontex is the first phase.

The so-called standing corps recruited its first inductees during 2019, who were sent to academies in Poland for training. According to reports at the time, the first Frontex standing corps officers are due to deploy in early 2021.

https://www.breitbart.com

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Unveil Underground Missile Base Near Persian Gulf Coast – Photos, Video

Sputnik News – January 8, 2021

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has revealed the existence of a new top-secret underground missile base belonging to the IRGC Navy.

Photos and video of the new base published by Iranian media shows senior officers touring the facility, walking past rows and rows of missiles of various classes and ranges. Footage shows long tunnels wide enough to allow for two-way traffic by mobile, truck-based missile launchers and supply vehicles.

The IRGC wasn’t exactly subtle about who the unveiling of the missile base was meant to send a message to, with the video showing officers walking over flags of the United States and Israel painted on the floor as they entered the base.

IRGC Commander-in-Chief Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, who was on hand to inaugurate the new facility, said the base is “one of several bases housing the Guards’ Navy’s strategic missiles,” suggesting it would help “boost the country’s deterrence power”, and protect “the territorial integrity and independence of the country and the achievements of the Islamic Revolution” against any would-be “demons” threatening aggression.

The commander added that the missiles housed at the base have a range of hundreds of kilometres, and have a high level of accuracy and destructive power, including anti-electronic warfare capabilities. According to Salami, the IRGC’s naval missiles are among the best in the world among coast-to-sea, surface-to-surface, air-to-sea and sea-to-air missile systems.

https://sputniknews.com

“More Courage to Assume Global Power”

GERMAN-FOREIGN-POLICY.com – January 7, 2021

(Own report) – The German foreign policy establishment is entering the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic with new plans for EU global power. Whereas in particular western powers and their allies have been overwhelmed by new waves of the pandemic, at times being confronted with rapidly increasing numbers of casualties, “Internationale Politik” (IP), Germany’s leading foreign policy periodical, is debating the question of “what Europe lacks to assume global power.” The demand that the Union must have more courage to assume global power had already been raised in several leading German media organs last fall. According to a poll, nearly half of all Germans surveyed agree that the EU can “play a strong role in global policy,” similar to that played by the USA and China – particularly followers of the Green Party (52 percent) and those of the FDP (56 percent), along with the generation aged between 18 and 29 (70 percent). Whereas, the IP calls on “Europe” to enhance its “international impact”, former EU commissioner Günther Oettinger cautions against the “complete overconfidence” evident in many EU capitals – “a kind of hubris.”

“Setting Standards Globally”

Demands for the EU to vigorously assert itself as a “global power” had already been raised last fall in liberal and conservative wide-circulation media organs. In October, the German weekly Zeit-online called for “more courage to assume global power.” The Union “must consider itself a global power.”[1] A little later, the Minister of Development, Gerd Müller, and the former foreign policy expert at the influential Bertelsmann Foundation, Werner Weidenfeld, declared in “Die Welt”, a daily owned by Springer, that the “EU has what it takes, to be a global power.” “Its sovereign – the nearly 400 million people with their top economic potential – and solid military equipment have lifted the EU to the rank of a global power.”[2] Almost two decades ago, Weidenfeld had used similar arguments to declare that the EU was a “global power in the making” (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[3]). Together with Müller, he now argues that “by virtue of its economic power, Europe” should “set standards in a digitalized and globalized multipolar world.” To accomplish this, Brussels of course needs not only a “more operational political framework” – if possible “flanked by a European strategic council” – but, for example, also a “European” army with a “joint command structure.”

https://www.german-foreign-policy.com

Research confirms increase in river flooding and droughts in U.S., Canada

Dartmouth College – January 7, 2021

The number of “extreme streamflow” events observed in river systems have increased significantly across the United States and Canada over the last century, according to a study from Dartmouth College.

In regions where water runoff from snowmelt is a main contributor to river streamflow, the study found a rise in extreme events, such as flooding.

In drought-prone regions in the western and southeastern U.S., the study found that the frequency of extreme low-flow events has also become more common, particularly during summer and fall.

The research, published in Science Advances, analyzed records dating back to 1910 to confirm the effects of recent changes in precipitation levels on river systems.

“Floods and droughts are extremely expensive and often life-threatening events,” said Evan Dethier, a postdoctoral researcher at Dartmouth and the lead author of the paper. “It’s really important that we have good estimates of how likely extreme events are to occur and whether that likelihood is changing.”

https://phys.org/news

U.S. sees some indications of possible Iranian attack in Mideast

Mosheh Gains – January 1, 2021

WASHINGTON — The U.S. has seen increasing indications that Iran could be planning an attack against American forces or interests in the Middle East, according to a U.S. official.

The U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that reading Iran’s intentions was “difficult and at times unpredictable.”

But the indications are being taken seriously, the official said. The one-year anniversary of the U.S.’ killing of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani is just days away.

Soleimani was killed in a U.S. dronestrike in Iraq on Jan. 3, 2020, in what the Defense Department characterized as a “defensive action” because it alleged the leader of Iran’s Quds Force was developing plans to attack Americans. Iran launched missiles against U.S. forces in Iraq in response to the killing days later.

This week, the U.S. flew B-52 bombers based at a Minot, North Dakota, Air Force base to the Middle East in a “deliberate appearance,” U.S. Central Command said, in the second such show of force this month.

The U.S. has recently accused what it said was an Iranian-backed militia of a Dec. 20 rocket attack on Baghdad’s green zone, in which 21 rockets were fired. No one was injured or killed.

Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, in a Tweet on Thursday objected to the B-52 flights and wrote: “Intelligence from Iraq indicate plot to FABRICATE pretext for war.”

On Dec. 23, referring to the rocket attack that damaged the U.S. embassy in the green zone, President Donald Trump had tweeted: “Some friendly health advice to Iran: If one American is killed, I will hold Iran responsible. Think it over.”

https://www.nbcnews.com

Lawmakers Asking Whether Cyberattack Is Act of War

Jeffrey Rodack – December 18, 2020

Congressional lawmakers are questioning whether the cyberattack on the federal government is an act of war.

According to The Hill, the cyberattack, widely attributed to Russia, may be the biggest in U.S. history.

It noted any U.S. response could be complicated by the presidential transition.

“We can’t be buddies with Vladimir Putin and have him at the same time making this kind of cyberattack on America,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told CNN. “This is virtually a declaration of war by Russia on the United States and we should take that seriously.”

And Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, told SiriusXM’s Olivier Knox in a Thursday interview: “What I find most astonishing is that a cyberhack of this nature is really the modern equivalent of almost Russian bombers reportedly flying undetected over the entire country. And they didn’t drop bombs, but they had the capacity to show that our defense is extraordinarily inadequate.”

The Energy Department and its National Nuclear Security Administration, which maintains America’s nuclear stockpile, were targeted as part of a broader attack, according to a person familiar with the matter. The hack didn’t affect mission-essential national security functions.

In addition, three unidentified states were also targeted.

CNN reported that Marco Rubio urged people not to jump to conclusions.

“There’s still information gathering occurring, so I’d caution anyone reaching conclusions or making pronouncements until all that is in,” said Rubio, who is Senate Intelligence Committee chairman.

https://www.newsmax.com