12-23-17

Russian submarines have dramatically stepped up activity around undersea data cables in the North Atlantic, part of a more aggressive naval posture that has driven NATO to revive a Cold War-era command. 

We know that these auxiliary submarines are designed to work on the ocean floor, and they’re transported by the mother ship, and we believe they may be equipped to manipulate objects on the ocean floor.”

That capability could give Russia the ability to sever the cables or tap into them. The insulated fiber-optic cables are fragile, and ships have damaged them accidentally by dragging their anchors along the seabed. That damage happens near the shore, where it is relatively easy to fix, not in the deeper Atlantic, where the cost of mischief could be far greater.

Stay at the ready, it’s possible North Korea is a simple distraction. For now.

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As US General visits Marines in Norway says he hopes he ‘s wrong but there’s a war coming. The ominous warning no doubt will be closely watched by Russian officials. Jerusalem’s Day of Rage continues on what  should be called “all out rage” . There seems to be no end in sight.

PLUS

Russia has been building up forces around there border while China has been developing new technology and increasing their military prowess. This as North Korea continues to test nuclear weapons and military officials say China and Russia are working together to prepare an attack against the United States. We are on the brink of WW3. More and more people are building World War 3 bunkers in preparation for a nuclear war.

AND

Asked by the BBC on Tuesday whether the US was committed to a peaceful resolution to the North Korean crisis, McMaster abandoned the usual formality of political speech.

“We’re not committed to a peaceful resolution, we’re committed to a resolution.” President Donald Trump’s national security adviser says the US is prepared to denuclearize North Korea against its will. This would most likely require war, and it flies in the face of experts who say North Korea’s missiles are now so advanced that they should deter a US attack. But Secretary of Defense James Mattis says he doubts North Korea’s claim that its missiles can reach the US with a nuclear warhead, and it looks as if the military isn’t ready to be counted out of the North Korean crisis. H.R. McMaster, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, has taken an incredibly bold stance on North Korea that points to the worst possible outcome: all-out war.

ALSO

China has opposed what it calls US meddling in an Asian dispute. It is the greatest of irony that even a communist nation Vietnam has sought support from capitalist America to counter belligerence and aggression from China which is a communist nation. Chinese recent activities have been such. China is embroiled in disputes on multiple fronts, latest being with India on Doklam plateau. America under Trump had already stepped up the game with increase in frequency of Freedom of Navigation Operations as well as initiating investigation in illegal trade practices of China. It remains to be seen how U.S can respond to China and North Korea at the same time.

General Warns Marines “…There’s a War Coming.”

Source Israelie News Live

Russian Subs are Prowling Around Vital Undersea Cables; Making NATO Nervous

Source Jim Yackel

RUSSIA AND CHINA PREPARING MILITARY STRIKE ON UNITED STATES

Source Right Wing

NORTH KOREA NUCLEAR WARNING! US WARNS: ‘A PRE-EMPTIVE ATTACK ON NORTH KOREA NECESSARY’

Source The TrumpEra

RUSSIA’S UNMANNED AIRCRAFT ARE GETTING LETHAL NEW MUNITIONS || WARTHOG 2017

Russian engineers have designed munitions specifically for the nation’s unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) fleets, according to RIA-Novosti news agency. The weapon’s combat weight is up to fifty kilograms. In effect, Russians have built precision-guided weapons for their UAVs.

Source Warthog

Russian submarines are prowling around vital undersea cables. It’s making NATO nervous.

BRUSSELS — Russian submarines have dramatically stepped up activity around undersea data cables in the North Atlantic, part of a more aggressive naval posture that has driven NATO to revive a Cold War-era command, according to senior military officials.

The apparent Russian focus on the cables, which provide Internet and other communications connections to North America and Europe, could give the Kremlin the power to sever or tap into vital data lines, the officials said. Russian submarine activity has increased to levels unseen since the Cold War, they said, sparking hunts in recent months for the elusive watercraft.

“We are now seeing Russian underwater activity in the vicinity of undersea cables that I don’t believe we have ever seen,” said U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Andrew Lennon, the commander of NATO’s submarine forces. “Russia is clearly taking an interest in NATO and NATO nations’ undersea infrastructure.”

NATO has responded with plans to reestablish a command post, shuttered after the Cold War, to help secure the North Atlantic. NATO allies are also rushing to boost anti-submarine warfare capabilities and to develop advanced submarine-detecting planes.

Britain’s top military commander also warned that Russia could imperil the cables that form the backbone of the modern global economy. The privately owned lines, laid along the some of the same corridors as the first transatlantic telegraph wire in 1858, carry nearly all of the communications on the Internet, facilitating trillions of dollars of daily trade. If severed, they could snarl the Web. If tapped, they could give Russia a valuable picture of the tide of the world’s Internet traffic. 

“It’s a pattern of activity, and it’s a vulnerability,” said British Air Chief Marshal Stuart Peach, in an interview.

“Can you imagine a scenario where those cables are cut or disrupted, which would immediately and potentially catastrophically affect both our economy and other ways of living if they were disrupted?” Peach said in a speech in London this month.

The Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment about the cables.

The Russian sea activity comes as the Kremlin has also pressed against NATO in the air and on land. Russian jets routinely clip NATO airspace in the Baltics, and troops drilled near NATO territory in September.

[Russia held a big military exercise. Here’s why the U.S. is paying attention.]

Russia has moved to modernize its once-decrepit Soviet-era fleet of submarines, bringing online or overhauling 13 craft since 2014. That pace, coming after Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula set off a new era of confrontation with the West, has spurred NATO efforts to counter them. Russia has about 60 full-size submarines, while the United States has 66.

Among Russia’s capabilities, Lennon said, are deep-sea research vessels, including an old converted ballistic submarine that carries smaller submarines. 

“They can do oceanographic research, underwater intelligence gathering,” he said. “And what we have observed is an increased activity of that in the vicinity of undersea cables. We know that these auxiliary submarines are designed to work on the ocean floor, and they’re transported by the mother ship, and we believe they may be equipped to manipulate objects on the ocean floor.”

That capability could give Russia the ability to sever the cables or tap into them. The insulated fiber-optic cables are fragile, and ships have damaged them accidentally by dragging their anchors along the seabed. That damage happens near the shore, where it is relatively easy to fix, not in the deeper Atlantic, where the cost of mischief could be far greater.

Lennon declined to say whether NATO believes Russia has actually touched the cables. Russian military leaders have acknowledged that the Kremlin is activeundersea at levels not seen since the end of the Cold War, when Russia was forced to curtail its submarine program in the face of economic turmoil and disorganization.

“Last year we reached the same level as before the post-Soviet period, in terms of running hours,” said Adm. Vladimir Korolev, the commander of the Russian Navy, earlier this year. “This is more than 3,000 days at sea for the Russian submarine fleet. This is an excellent sign.”

The activity has forced a revival of Western sub-hunting skills that lay largely dormant since the end of the Cold War. Lennon said NATO allies have long practiced submarine-hunting. But until the last few years, there were few practical needs for close tracking, military officials said. 

In recent months, the U.S. Navy has flown sorties in the areas where Russia is known to operate its submarines, according to aircraft trackers that use publicly available transponder data. On Thursday, for example, one of the planes shot off from Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily, headed eastward into the Mediterranean. It flew the same mission a day earlier.

The trackers have captured at least 10 missions carried out by U.S. submarine-tracking planes this month, excluding trips when the planes simply appeared to be in transit from one base to another. November was even busier, with at least 17 missions captured by the trackers.

NATO does not comment on specific submarine-tracking flights and declined to release data, citing the classified nature of the missions. But NATO officials say that their submarine-tracking activities have significantly increased in the region.

Submarines are particularly potent war-fighting craft because they can generally only be heard, not seen, underwater. They can serve as a retaliatory strike force in case of nuclear war, threaten military resupply efforts and expand the range of conventional firepower available for use in lower-level conflicts.

The vessels are a good fit for the Kremlin’s strategy of making do with less than its rivals, analysts say: Russia’s foes need vast resources to track a single undersea craft, making the submarines’ cost-to-mischief ratio attractive. Even as Russia remains a vastly weaker military force than NATO, the Kremlin has been able to pack an outsize punch in its confrontation with the West through the seizure of Crimea, support for the Syrian regime and, according to U.S. intelligence, its attempts to influence the U.S. election.

“You go off and you try to add expense for anything that we’re doing, or you put things at risk that are of value to us, and submarines give them the capability to do it,” a senior NATO official said of the Russian approach, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence assessments.

Russian military planners can say, “I can build fewer of them, I can have better quality, and I can put at risk and challenge and make it difficult for NATO,” the official said. 

Still, some analysts say the threat to cables may be overblown.

“Arguably, the Russians wouldn’t be doing their jobs if they couldn’t threaten underwater cables. Certainly, NATO allies would not be doing theirs if they were unable to counter that,” said Adam Thomson, a former British ambassador to NATO.

Russian military planners have publicized their repeated use of submarine-launched Kalibr cruise missiles during their incursion into Syria, which began in fall 2015. (In Syria, the missiles have not always hit their targets, according to U.S. intelligence officials, undermining somewhat the Russian claims of potency.) 

NATO’s hunts — which have stretched across the Baltic, Mediterranean and Atlantic — have mobilized submarine-tracking frigates, sonar-equipped P8 Poseidon planes and helicopters, and attack submarines that have combed the seas.

“The Russians are operating all over the Atlantic,” said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. “They are also operating closer to our shores.” 

Russia’s enhanced submarine powers give urgency to NATO’s new efforts to ensure that it can get forces to the battlefront if there is a conflict, Stoltenberg said. In addition to the new Atlantic-focused command, the alliance also plans to create another command dedicated to enabling military forces to travel quickly across Europe.

NATO defense ministers approved the creation of the commands at a November meeting. Further details are expected in February. The plans are still being negotiated, but they currently include the North Atlantic command being embedded inside the U.S. Fleet Forces Command in Norfolk, which would transform into a broader NATO joint force command if there was a conflict, a NATO diplomat said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss plans that have not been finalized.

“Credible deterrence is linked to credible reinforcement capabilities,” Stoltenberg said. “We’re a transatlantic alliance. You need to be able to cross the Atlantic.”

SOURCE Washington {Post

HOW CHINA HAS USED THE NORTH KOREAN CRISIS TO FURTHER ITS CAUSE IN SOUTH CHINA SEA

INTRODUCTION

World’s and America’s focus has been on North Korea, and rightly so. Tensions over China’s island-building in the South China Sea may have eased in the past year, but Beijing has kept busy. New satellite imagery shows China has built infrastructure covering 72 acres (28 hectares) in the Spratly and Paracel islands during 2017 to equip its larger outposts to be air and naval bases. The Washington-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative closely tracks developments in the South China Sea, where China and several Asian governments have conflicting territorial claims. It said on Thursday there has been construction of hangars, underground storage, missile shelters, radar arrays and other facilities. In this video, Defense Updates analyses

HOW CHINA HAS USED THE NORTH KOREAN CRISIS TO FURTHER ITS CAUSE IN SOUTH CHINA SEA? BACKGROUND

China’s sweeping claims of sovereignty over the sea have infuriated competing claimants Malaysia, Brunei, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines as well as Vietnam. United States, Japan, Australia and India favor freedom of navigation as it is a very important sea route with 5 trillion $ in trade, half of global merchant shipping and 1/2 of world’s oil shipment pass through it. The sea also has alleged 11 billion barrels of untapped oil and 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. China embarked on its massive land-reclamation program in early 2014. South China Sea Arbitration, was an arbitration case brought by t Philippines against China The landmark decision rejected China’s assertion that it enjoys historical rights over a huge area of the South China Sea encompassed by a “nine-dash line.” China had argued that the tribunal had no jurisdiction in the matter and rejected the decision. Many complex disputes have been resolved with this type of arbitration including maritime boundaries. China’s outright rejection symbolizes its high handed behavior and utter disregard for international norms.

CHINA’S STRATEGY

China has tried to change the territorial status quo gradually, island-by-island instead of trying to capture in one go. For example, China first occupied the Paracel Islands in 1974 and then slowly expanded its presence southward by attacking Vietnam’s islands in the Spratly chain in the 1980s. This strategy known as salami slicing, aims for slow accumulation of small changes.

STATUS

The new construction activity comes as China joins what are likely to be protracted negotiations with Southeast Asian nations on a “ ode of conduct” for South China Sea. Tensions with the US on the issue have also eased, despite Washington’s criticism of Beijing’s conduct. The construction is the follow-up phase to a campaign of land reclamation that was completed by early 2016 in the Spratlys, an island chain where Malaysia, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam and Brunei also have claims. According to the Pentagon, China has added more than 3,200 acres (1,248 hectares) of land to the seven land features it occupies in the area.

ANALYSIS

Greg Poling, the initiative’s director, said China had seized a diplomatic opening after the election of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who adopted a conciliatory stance toward Beijing over their territorial dispute. It’s also been less of a focus for President Donald Trump’s administration, preoccupied by North Korea’s nuclear threat and trade disputes with China. “It’s gotten off the front pages, but we shouldn’t confuse that with a softening in China’s pursuit of its goals. They are continuing all the construction they want,” Poling said. The most construction has been on Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratlys, including hangars alongside its 10,000-foot (3,000-meter) airstrip, underground structures likely intended to house munitions or other materiel, hardened shelters for missile platforms, and communication and radar facilities, the initiative said.

CONCLUSION

The United States does not claim territory in the South China Sea but has declared it has a national interest in ensuring that the territorial disputes there are resolved peacefully in accordance with international law and that freedom of navigation and overflight are guaranteed. China has opposed what it calls US meddling in an Asian dispute. It is the greatest of irony that even a communist nation Vietnam has sought support from capitalist America to counter belligerence and aggression from China which is a communist nation. Chinese recent activities have been such. China is embroiled in disputes on multiple fronts, latest being with India on Doklam plateau. America under Trump had already stepped up the game with increase in frequency of Freedom of Navigation Operations as well as initiating investigation in illegal trade practices of China. It remains to be seen how U.S can respond to China and North Korea at the same time.

Source Defense Updates

#war #ww3 #china #russia #usa #noKorea 

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