RUSSIA has unveiled a first glimpse of its monster submarine - dubbed “Vladimir the Great” - as it goes on sea trials in the Arctic.

The the Borei-style nuclear ballistic missile submarine is capable of launching 20 intercontinental nuclear missiles, decimating cities almost 6,000 miles away.

There are times when I wish that the United States would just drop the charade and declare itself a global empire. As a veteran of two imperial wars, a witness to the dark underside of America’s empire-denial, I’ve grown tired of the equivocation and denials from senior policymakers. The U.S. can’t be an empire, we’re told, because – unlike the Brits and Romans – America doesn’t annex territories outright, and our school children don’t color its colonies in red-white-and-blue on cute educational maps.

The proposed policies, if adopted by the new leadership in the House, would certainly fracture whatever consensus exists today to modernize America's strategic nuclear deterrent -- and at a time when both Russia and China are charging ahead militarily, and Iran and North Korea are racing toward a deliverable nuclear weapons capability.

If the United States chooses to eliminate its land-based missiles, as arms control advocates have proposed, it would dramatically and dangerously simplify an adversary's targeting calculus. The US would be reducing more than 500 distinct American-based nuclear-related targets -- including 450 Minuteman silos and 48 launch control centers spread across five American states -- down to only five continental US targets -- three USAF bomber bases, and two submarines bases -- and only roughly 10 targets if US submarines at sea were included.

US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joe Dunford issued a statement Monday denying weekend media reports that the US plans to leave around 1,000 troops in Syria, saying the reports are “factually incorrect.”

Dunford presented the current planned “residual force” as 200, saying that this hadn’t changed since February. The US announced 200 would stay on February 21, but on February 22 officially increased that number to 400.

It’s not clear from Dunford’s statement where the “incorrect” aspect of the new report, which came out of a Wall Street Journal, exists. That report suggested that the 1,000 figure was not yet finalized, but was being discussed. Dunford’s comments didn’t include any details on what is actually being discussed, but just that nothing was finalized.

A U.S. government-led group is working with chipmaker Intel Corp and Cray Inc to develop and build the nation's fastest computer by 2021 for conducting nuclear weapons and other research, officials said on Monday.

The Department of Energy and the Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago said they are working on a supercomputer dubbed Aurora with Intel, the world's biggest supplier of data center chips, and Cray, which specializes in the ultra-fast machines.

This is the incredible moment enormous American B-52 bombers land at a RAF base in the largest US bomber deployment to the UK since the Iraq war.

Amazing photos and video footage have captured the impressive US planes landing at RAF Fairford, in Gloucestershire, their new temporary base.

Their arrival on Thursday and Friday came ahead of a NATO exercise in Georgia, which will be a show of force against Vladimir Putin's neighbouring Russia - though it is unclear if the B-52s will be involved.

Two US strategic bomber B-52H Stratofortress have, earlier today, arrived at Fairford Air Force Base in the UK. Aircraft DRYER91 and DRYER92 took off from Barksdale air base in Louisiana and landed in the morning at a British airfield, according to the data from the following source:

In addition, three more American B-52 bomber with the callsign STRAY81, STRAY82, STRAY83 and one B-52H with the call sign CLIP91 were transferred to the UK in the last two days. Thus, according to the information of the source, the USA transferred six nuclear bombers to Fairford. This should raise some concerns.

The U.S. has sent nuclear-capable Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombers to the United Kingdom for strategic missions in Europe.

A "Bomber Task Force" arrived at the Royal Air Force (RAF) Fairford on Thursday from the 2nd Bomb Wing at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, U.S. Air Forces Europe-Africa (USAFE) said in a press release.

"The deployment also includes joint and allied training in the U.S. European Command theater to improve bomber interoperability. Training with joint partners, allied nations and other U.S. Air Force units contributes to our ready and postured forces and enables us to build enduring and strategic relationships necessary to confront a broad range of global challenges," the statement read.

According to Gloucestershire Live, two B-52s arrived at RAF Fairford on Thursday with more expected Friday.

With the world’s largest, most destructive arsenal of nuclear weapons, the United States poses an enormous risk not just to peace, but to the survival of much of the human race. That’s only a problem, of course, if the US starts using that arsenal.

Which is where formal US nuclear doctrine would come in. There have been debates for decades on whether the US should adopt a “no first use” policy, officially ruling out the idea that the US would launch a nuclear attack without first being attacked with a nuclear weapon.

Morally, this ought to be obvious, but every attempt to adopt such a policy has been opposed, with Joint Chiefs commander Gen. Joe Dunford the latest to come out against the idea, saying promising not to nuke other nations in a first strike would “simplify an adversary’s decision-making.”

Pentagon officials announced plans this week to move forward with flight tests of two medium to long range missile types previously banned under the Reagan era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) which both Washington and Moscow recently declared they have effectively pulled out of. The tests of the long-banned ground-launched cruise missiles would mark an ultimate point of no return for the fast faltering landmark 1987 treaty.

The tests are expected to begin in August, the point at which the US and Russia agree the INF is set to finally terminate, which would be the death knell of the over three decade treaty which successfully kept missile build up out of Europe at the tail end of the Cold War and after.

Washington’s new nuclear doctrine, which was announced on 2 February, outlines that President Trump, just like predecessor Barack Obama, would consider using nuclear weapons only in “extreme circumstances”. The Nuclear Posture Review also allows the US to strike first in a preemptive move.

General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has warned against changing the current US military policy which allows the country to be the first to use nuclear weapons during a possible conflict with an adversary.

Speaking at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Dunford said that he “absolutely” believes that “the current policy is the right policy”.

First deputy chairman of the defense committee of the State Duma, Andrei Krasov, explained to Russian media – and through FRN, to the Anglophoe world – why the US maintains a nuclear first strike policy. According to the Russian senator, the policy of a preemptive nuclear strike by the United States is not beneficial to American society, but to the US military’s defense industry. Krasov made his comments in the aftermath of disturbing comments made from

Yesterday on March 14th, low-functioning psychopath and war-criminal for hire, General Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee of the US Armed Forces, said that Washington should not abandon the policy of delivering a preemptive nuclear strike, since this option forces the enemy to make informed decisions.

Thom talks with author and filmmaker John Pilger about his new documentary “The Coming War On China” and the military escalation that could lead World War III.

A “marathon” round of talks with the Taliban in Qatar has produced an “agreement in draft” on counter-terrorism assurances and American troop withdrawal, said US envoy for peace in Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad.
“The conditions for peace have improved,” Khalilzad tweeted after the talks. “Despite ups and downs, we kept things on track and made real strides.”

It’s clear all sides want to end the war.

Troop withdrawal and counter-terrorism assurances are the first two issues that Khalilzad and the Taliban reached an “agreement on principle” during the talks in January.

When the final deal is reached on those two issues, the Taliban will start negotiations on “a political settlement and comprehensive ceasefire,” with the government in Kabul and other factions in Afghanistan, Khalilzad said.

On July 25, 1945, in the waning moments of World War II, then US President Harry S. Truman jotted the following words in his diary, “We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world.” But not terrible enough to employ them, it seems.

Just weeks later, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese industrial cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, indiscriminately killing some 200,000 civilians in, literally, a flash. Many others died in the years that followed from radiation poisoning and other associated illnesses. If there is a special place in hell for those who would expose the planet to such horrific weapons, Truman must certainly be there.

Palmer Luckey (previously) the alt-right financier who was made a billionaire by Mark Zuckerberg's decision to acquire his VR startup Oculus, is now running a Peter-Thiel-backed surveillance startup called Anduril Industries, which has won a contract to contribute to Project Maven, the Pentagon's controversial AI-for-drones system (Google's involvement in Project Maven sparked an employee uprising that ended with the relevant executives leaving the company and the contract being allowed to lapse).

Luckey's company won the contract after he made lavish contributions to the campaigns of Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans.

A lawsuit warns that U.S. aid to Israel violates a law meant to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation, even as the United States prepares to increase the already massive Israeli aid program.

Filed Aug. 8 by Grant Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle East Policy, or IRMEP, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the suit alleges that U.S. aid to Israel violates two amendments to the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act, known as the the Symington and Glenn Amendments, which collectively ban support for countries engaged in clandestine nuclear programs.

In the lawsuit, Smith alleges that violating these amendments means that Israel has received approximately $234 billion in illegal aid since the passage of the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act of 1976.

The lawsuit reads:

The US Government has been scorned for lifting its ban on experiments to engineer deadly bird flu which could infect humans.

Research into the viruses will soon be allowed to carry on, despite experts warning people could die if the pathogens break out of laboratories.

Scientists say they want to study the virus 'to protect human health' so they can learn more about it and be better prepared for a pandemic.

But Professor Steven Salzberg, a biomedical engineering expert at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, said he cannot fathom why the US National Institutes of Health, which has permitted the 'dangerous' research, is allowing it to happen.

While the Zircon hypersonic cruise missile has not attracted the same level of media attention as the strategic Avangard re-entry vehicle or even the air-launched Kinzhal aeroballistic missile, it nevertheless represents an important advance in military technology and represents the state-of-the-art of Russian technologies. It promises to maintain and even expand Russia’s conventional deterrence through its high guarantee of effective retaliatory capability even against the most advanced anti-air and anti-missile defenses.

This doesn't look good...

Two days after reports about North Korea rebuilding a long-range missile test site surfaced in Western media, the Korea Times reported Thursday that a 2.1-magnitude earthquake has been detected in North Korea.

Most alarmingly, the Korean Meteorological Administration said the quake was the result of "artificial" seismic activity, presumably the result of an explosion inside a mine.

"The epicenter is measured to be near the land surface," one official reportedly said.

The footage shows the aftermath of four separate 32-kiloton blasts from an atomic bomb later nicknamed 'Dirty Harry.'

Three clips show the moment the heat blast from the bombs melted the paint on three separate automobiles, including two classic sedans and a bus.
Moments later the vehicles are blown away by the bomb's shockwave.
A fourth clip shows an empty tent bursting into flames before being obliterated.

Deseret News called the nuclear trials 'tragic and insane,' in a 1953 editorial, but said the tests were necessary in the atomic Cold War era, the New York Times reported.

'So long as we live in an atomic world, we must and will continue to learn more about this power and how to survive it,' the paper's editors once rationalized.
There were 928 nuclear tests that took place at the Nevada test site from 1951 to 1992.

Most of those test explosions were detonated underground.

The Commander, Naval Air Forces and the U.S. Marine Corps Deputy Commandant for Aviation published a statement last week declaring its fleet of Lockheed Martin F-35C stealth fighter jets are operationally ready for war.

After several decades of testing and development, the service announced Thursday that the fifth-generation fighter had achieved Initial Operating Capability, indicating that it has passed all tests to be flown on combat missions.

Thursday's announcement came after a squadron of the F-35Cs qualified and deployed with the San Diego-based Nimitz-class supercarrier, Carl Vinson.

“The F-35C is ready for operations, ready for combat and ready to win,” said Commander Naval Air Forces, Vice Admiral DeWolfe Miller. “We are adding an incredible weapon system into the arsenal of our Carrier Strike Groups that significantly enhances the capability of the joint force.”

The UK is under pressure to adopt a more aggressive posture towards the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign in exchange for better trade deals with the US in post-Brexit negotiations between the two countries.

Details of the post-Brexit trade negotiations-which suggest Britain is unlikely to get softer treatment than other US allies-were released last week in an 18-page document by the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), led by Robert Lighthizer. Listed amongst the “negotiating objectives” of the Trump administration is a demand for the UK to take a more hostile stance towards BDS.

Russia has formally pulled out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) after previously signalling that it would take this historic step after the White House announced last month that the US would suspend all obligations under the treaty. President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Monday formally enacting and finalizing Russia’s suspension of the INF Treaty, which was set to expire in less than six months and subject of heightened tensions after both sides have repeatedly accused the other of having been in violation of its terms for years.

Research that could make flu viruses more dangerous, and that the government suspended in 2014 because of safety concerns, has been approved to begin again, federal officials have confirmed.

The government did not publicly announce its decisions in recent months to allow two labs to resume their projects. The new go-ahead was first reported in the journal Science.

The lack of information about the decision and how it was made have provoked outrage from some scientists, who oppose the research because they say it could create mutant viruses that might cause deadly pandemics if they were unleashed by lab accidents or terrorism. The research sparked worldwide fears when it was first revealed in 2011.

In 2014, U.S. officials imposed a moratorium on experiments to enhance some of the world’s most lethal viruses by making them transmissible by air, responding to widespread concerns that a lab accident could spark a global pandemic. Most infectious-disease studies pose modest safety risks, but given that these proposed experiments intended to create a highly contagious flu virus that could spread among humans, the government concluded the work should not go on until it could be approved through a specially created, rigorous review process that considered the dangers.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah today condemned the UK’s decision to add it to its list of “terrorist groups”.

“No country in the world that embraces, finances and supports terrorism has the right to accuse the party [i.e., Hezbollah], or any resistance movement, of terrorism,” Hezbollah said in a statement.

The move, the group added, “reveals how the British government is only a follower in the service of its American master.”

Yesterday, Britain’s parliament voted to officially label Hezbollah as a “terrorist group”.

As of next Monday, membership in – or support for – the group will be considered a criminal offense in the UK, carrying sentences of up to ten years in prison.

A Russian defense contractor, Kalashnikov Concern, named after one of the most famous small-arms designers of all time, is now producing kamikaze drones designed to destroy remote ground targets.

The “high-precision unmanned aerial system” KUB-BLA was for the first time showcased at the International Exhibition of Arms and Military Equipment 2019 in Abu Dhabi. The drone delivers an explosive charge on the coordinates of the target, which are set manually or can be acquired automatically by uploading image of the target into the guidance system.

The KUB-BLA has a 3-kilogram payload, a flying time of 30 minutes, and a 80-130-kilometer-per-hour speed. It measures 1210mm wide by 950mm long and 165mm high. Typically, the payload is apparently a high-explosive charge. Kalashnikov Concern says that the advantages of the system are “hidden launch, high accuracy of the shot, noiselessness and ease of handling”.

The House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight and Reform has issued a report on a plot to make billions of dollars by selling Saudi Arabia sensitive American nuclear technology that could allow the Kingdom to develop nuclear weapons. The scheme required breaking US law, which forbids technology transfers that might allow nuclear proliferation.

We're at a scary moment internationally as tensions escalate between the nuclear powers of India and Pakistan, and we should all be praying for things to calm down. In addition to the horrible death toll and humanitarian crisis that would follow, according to scientists, a small-scale nuclear war could actually reverse global warming and actually cause devastating global cooling.

To be abundantly clear, what follows isn't meant as a how-to guide advocating nuclear war as some sort of out-of-the box alternative solution to climate change. It's meant as a description of the science surrounding how a theoretical regional nuclear war could affect the Earth's atmosphere, and thus the climate, even for people not directly in the blast radius.

War has erupted in Asia. India is the second largest country in the world by population, and Pakistan is the fifth largest, and they both possess large nuclear arsenals. If this conflict continues to escalate, things could get really, really bad very quickly. On Wednesday, military aircraft were shot down by both sides, there was shelling across the border by both armies, and in recent hours videos have been posted of Pakistani tanks and Indian tanks both heading to the border. Once one army crosses the “Line of Control”, it is going to be very difficult to get the two sides to sit down at the negotiating table. War is one of the elements of “the perfect storm” that I have been warning you about, and I have a feeling that this is just the beginning of the conflict that we are going to see in 2019.

The Pakistani military was greatly embarrassed by the successful Indian airstrikes on Monday, and on Tuesday military aircraft from both sides were shot down…

The United States military is going to attempt to build deadly artificial intelligence-driven tanks. Dubbed Project ATLAS, this type of tank would lead to the first autonomous ground combat vehicles.

According to Quartz, the Advanced Targeting and Lethality Automated System (ATLAS) would theoretically give a tank the ability to do everything necessary to take down a target except pull the trigger. A human operator will still need to actually fire the weapon that will kill another human being. The United States Army has already called on experts in the field to help it develop this deadly technology. Eventually, it will allow a ground combat vehicle such a tank to automatically detect, target, and engage enemy combatants – without the risk of the operator losing their life.

The military's four new Humvee replacement Joint Light Tactical Vehicles are not ready to be deployed due to 'safety issues, being difficult to maintain and the doors don't open properly'

The military reported test results of it's four Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTVs)
They were all found to be 'not operationally suitable' for use on the battlefield
The Close Combat Weapons Carrier in particular was 'not operationally effective'
The findings revealed problems including inaccurate health monitoring systems, doors opening, difficulty loading missiles and not enough cargo space
The military plans to order 55,000 JLTVs for use by the Army, Marines Corps and Air Force, which would partially replace their Humvees
The military intended to start rolling out the JLTVs to the branches in early 2019 .

fter two of its destroyers were involved in deadly accidents in the summer of 2017, the Navy’s leaders pledged real change: more sailors for their ships, and better training for those sailors and the officers who led them. Old or broken equipment would be fixed, too. Most important, the Navy’s top command would stop forcing ships out to sea before they were ready.

In late 2017, as part of an effort to assure commanders that the Navy was committed to genuine reform, Adm. Philip Davidson embarked on a speaking tour. Davidson was in charge of “readiness” — responsible for making sure that the Navy’s ships were fully staffed, and that sailors were adequately trained and equipped and ready for combat. He had recently authored a public report laying out dozens of specific weaknesses that the Navy had begun fixing.

The House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight and Reform has issued a report on a plot to make billions of dollars by selling Saudi Arabia sensitive American nuclear technology that could allow the Kingdom to develop nuclear weapons. The scheme required breaking US law, which forbids technology transfers that might allow nuclear proliferation.

Nothing unites the D.C. blob like a good old coup d’état. The only other times, it seems, that Donald Trump is given a break by “the resistance” is when he acts “presidential” — i.e., orders military aggression, as we saw with Syria.

As veteran journalist Dan Rather put it at the time:

The number of members of the press who have lauded the actions last night as ‘presidential’ is concerning. War must never be considered a public relations operation. It is not a way for an Administration to gain a narrative. It is a step into a dangerous unknown and its full impact is impossible to predict, especially in the immediate wake of the first strike.”

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro faced growing regional pressure on Sunday after his troops repelled foreign aid convoys, with the United States threatening new sanctions and Brazil urging allies to join a “liberation effort”.

Violent clashes with security forces over the opposition’s U.S.-backed attempt on Saturday to bring aid into the economically devastated country left almost 300 wounded and at least three protesters dead near the Brazilian border.

Juan Guaido, recognised by most Western nations as Venezuela’s legitimate leader, urged foreign powers to consider “all options” in ousting Maduro, ahead of a meeting of the regional Lima Group of nations in Bogota on Monday that will be attended by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence.

While Americans were obsessing over a third-rate actor’s fake claims of a racial assault, old foes India and Pakistan were rattling their nuclear weapons in a very dangerous crisis over Kashmir. But hardly anyone noticed that nuclear war could break out in South Asia.

India and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed, have fought four wars over divided Kashmir since 1947, the lovely mountain state of forests and lakes whose population is predominantly Muslim. India controls two thirds of Kashmir; Pakistan and China the rest. This bitter dispute, one of the world’s oldest confrontations, has defied all attempts to resolve it.

The United Nations called on India to hold a plebiscite to determine Kashmir’s future, but Delhi ignored this demand, knowing it would probably lose the vote.

A majority of voters in a referendum on Okinawa opposed a plan to relocate a U.S. military base within the southern Japanese island, but the central government said on Monday it intended to press ahead with its construction plans.

The United States has left unanswered Russia’s proposal for reaffirming the commitment to efforts for preventing nuclear war, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in the wake of calls from the mayors of Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki, addressed to Russia and the United States, for preventing the severing of the Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, during his annual presidential address to the legislature Wednesday, criticized the United States for ignoring the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty by deploying missile launchers in Romania and Poland.

"First it started developing and using intermediate-range missiles it deceitfully called targets for missile defenses. Then it began to deploy the Mk-41 launchers in Europe, capable of using intermediate range cruise missiles Tomahawk for combat purposes," he said.

"By doing all this the United States blatantly ignored the provisions contained in articles 4 and 6 of the INF Treaty."

Russia will respond to any U.S. deployment of short or intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe by targeting not only the countries where they are stationed but the United States itself, Putin warned.

Europe’s possible agreement to host US intermediate and shorter-range ballistic missiles will be tantamount to signing a "suicide pact" in light of Russia’s declared resolve to target these potential security threats, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the leader of Germany’s Civil Rights Movement Solidarity party, told Sputnik.

"If Europe were to accept the installation of new US missiles on its territory in this strategic environment, it would sign a suicide pact," Zepp-LaRouche said.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has vowed to use force against the United States should the U.S. deploy any missile weapons in Europe. Putin says the threat is necessary to protect Russia because U.S. weapons will be much closer to being able to destroy his country.

In what could be called Putin’s toughest remarks yet on a potential new arms race, the Russian president said Moscow was not seeking confrontation and would not take the first step to deploy missiles in response to Washington’s decision this month to quit a landmark Cold War-era arms control treaty. But Putin would take action against the U.S. if the decision is made to deploy weapons in Europe.

In his first major public address since the US formally pulled out of the INF arms-control treaty, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Wednesday that Russia would point its new arsenal of hypersonic missiles - which can purportedly bypass NATO's ABM systems - directly at the US if it dares to reintroduce ground-based intermediate-range missiles to Europe.

According to Fox, Putin threatened to deploy Russia’s new Zircon missiles, which Putin said can fly at nine times the speed of sound and carry a range of 620 miles and are part of the country's drive to upgrade its defensive capabilities against an increasingly aggressive US and NATO.

Russia will consider tit-for-tat and asymmetric measures if the United States deploys intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles to Europe, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his annual State of the Nation address to the Federal Assembly on Wednesday.

"I’ve already said and I want to repeat - and this is vital - to repeat this specifically, that Russia is not planning to be the first to deploy these missiles to Europe. If they are indeed manufactured and sent to the European continent, and the US does have these plans, anyway, we haven’t heard other statements, this will sharply deteriorate international security and create serious threats to Russia since it takes up to 10-12 minutes for certain types of these missiles to fly to Moscow. This is a very serious danger to us. In this case, we will be forced, and I want to stress this, we will be forced to envisage tit-for-tat and asymmetric measures," Putin said.

In an address to the Federal Assembly on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin touched upon a spate of pressing international issues related to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

Putin Warns Against US Missiles in Europe

During the address, the Russian president specifically touched upon the possible deployment of US missiles in Europe.

He warned that if Washington deploys its medium-and short-range missiles in Europe, it will “dramatically exacerbate international security situation" and create serious challenges to Russia.

Our sudden hostility to China reflects a consensus – at least within the Washington Beltway – that we need to wrestle China to the ground and pin it there. But what are the chances we can do that? What are the consequences of attempting it? Where are we now headed with China?

Realism is out of fashion in Washington even if it’s alive and well elsewhere in America. It should give us pause that our new enemy of choice is a very different, larger, and more dynamic country than any we have unbefriended before. China had a couple of bad centuries. But forty years ago, the Chinese Communist Party and government began to evolve what turned out to be a successful model of economic development that blended state capitalism with free enterprise. This unleashed the entrepreneurial talents of the Chinese people. The results have been staggering.

Supporters of a measure to cut off U.S. support to Saudi Arabia in Yemen are projecting victory in the coming weeks when the Senate takes up a House-passed resolution.

The Trump administration is expected to ramp up its lobbying against the Yemen war powers resolution as the vote nears in hopes of flipping some of the Republicans who back the measure.

But opponents have few tools at their disposal to stop the resolution, which only needs a simple majority for a procedural vote and subsequent final passage.

Backers say they now have added momentum as the administration’s missteps in handling the Jamal Khashoggi killing have only increased ire at Saudi Arabia.

“I think we’re going to win,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said.

He declined to say whether he expects any Republicans who supported the measure in December to switch their vote.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) just inked billions in deals to secure new weapons from top Pentagon contractor Raytheon a week after an Amnesty International investigation further implicated the Gulf nation in war crimes for transferring Western weapons to unaccountable militia groups, thereby deepening the humanitarian crisis and fueling carnage in war-ravaged Yemen.

"Emirati forces receive billions of dollars' worth of arms from Western states and others, only to siphon them off to militias in Yemen that answer to no-one and are known to be committing war crimes."

Srinagar, India-administered Kashmir - At least seven people, including two armed rebels and four Indian army soldiers, have been killed in an ongoing gun battle in India-administered Kashmir.

The gun battle on Monday in Pinglan village of Pulwama district comes days after 42 Indian security personnel were killed in a suicide blast - the worst such attack in 30 years of Kashmir conflict, which has raised fears of confrontation with archenemy Pakistan.

A senior Indian army official told Al Jazeera that the operation against the rebels was launched early on Monday following intelligence inputs about their presence in a house in Pinglan village.

"In the encounter, two militants and four army soldiers have been killed. The operation is still in progress," the official said, adding that the identity of the rebels was being ascertained.

"Among the slain soldiers is a top army officer," he added.

The Pentagon’s research office is exploring how artificial intelligence can improve technologies that link troops’ brains and bodies to military systems.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency recently began recruiting teams to research how AI tools could augment and enhance “next-generation neurotechnology.” Through the program, officials ultimately aim to build AI into neural interfaces, a technology that lets people control, feel and interact with remote machines as though they were a part of their own body.

Impossible as they may sound, neural interfaces have already been used to allow people to control prosthetic limbs, translate thoughts into text, and telepathically fly drones. Through the Intelligent Neural Interfaces program, DARPA will explore how AIcan make these systems more durable, efficient and effective.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned Pakistan on Friday to expect a strong response to a suicide attack that killed 44 paramilitary policemen in Kashmir, ratcheting up tension between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

The car bomb attack on a security convoy on Thursday was the worst in decades of insurgency in the disputed region. India said it had “incontrovertible evidence” of Pakistani involvement, a statement quickly rejected by Islamabad.

“We will give a befitting reply, our neighbour will not be allowed to de-stabilise us,” Modi said in a speech, after meeting security advisers to discuss options.

The attack comes months before national elections in India.

The Pakistan-based Islamist militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) claimed responsibility soon after a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into a bus carrying police personnel.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned Pakistan on Friday to expect a strong response to a suicide attack that killed 44 paramilitary policemen in Kashmir, ratcheting up tension between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

The car bomb attack on a security convoy on Thursday was the worst in decades of insurgency in the disputed region. India said it had “incontrovertible evidence” of Pakistani involvement, a statement quickly rejected by Islamabad.

“We will give a befitting reply, our neighbour will not be allowed to de-stabilise us,” Modi said in a speech, after meeting security advisers to discuss options.

The attack comes months before national elections in India.

The Pakistan-based Islamist militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) claimed responsibility soon after a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into a bus carrying police personnel.

F-35B Lightning II stealth fighter jets with the fixed-wing detachment of Medium Marine Tiltrotor Squadron 262, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), conducted a bombing exercise from the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Wasp in the Philippine and East China Seas, Jan. 26 through Feb. 6, according to a press release by the US Indo-Pacific Command.
F35B releases smart bombs above the Pacific Ocean, Feb. 3, 2019.
During the exercise, fifth-generation combat aircraft were armed with Sidewinder missiles and precision-guided munitions.

As Congress tackles urgent issues of reopening government and setting the budget for the country, it takes the time to prioritize a foreign country: H.R.648 contains assurances that Israel will receive $3.8 billion for arms, and funding for refugee resettlement; the bill also includes threats to de-fund the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and any future state of Palestine–if US demands (dictated by the Israel lobby) are not met.

t’s been the opinion here at CFN that Mr. McCabe and a long list of DOJ / FBI / and Intel employees would eventually be summoned to grand juries on charges ranging from lying to their Internal Affairs colleagues all the way to sedition. Those worms now seem to be turning. Both house and senate committees investigating the Russia narrative declared that they turned up no evidence for it.

And late this week, William Barr was confirmed as a new Attorney General, meaning the extreme case of bureaucratic constipation in that department may be resolving in a shitstorm of counter-revelations and prosecutions in what amounted to an attempted coup d’etat. A lot of the evidence for that is already public and overwhelming.

But what will happen in the meantime as their enablers are dragged into courts of law to answer for their roguery?

A bipartisan team of US senators is preparing to hit Russia with additional sanctions over its 2016 US election interference and military operations in Syria and Ukraine.

Sens. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) are spearheading the measure, called the Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act, which includes a wide range of financial penalties targeting Russia's energy complex, financial industry and "political figures, oligarchs, and family members and other persons that facilitate illicit and corrupt activities, directly or indirectly, on behalf of Vladimir Putin," reported The Independent.

Threats of the sanctions rocked Russian stock and government bond markets at the end of the week, and the country's debt insurance costs jumped alongside FX volatility.

Moscow has responded to the prospect of new sanctions with anger.

A former minister told Russians to prepare for the worst outcome; the Kremlin accused the US of “racketeering.”

What dreamers they were! They imagined a kind of global power that would leave even Rome at its Augustan height in the shade. They imagined a world made for one, a planet that could be swallowed by a single great power. No, not just great, but beyond anything ever seen before — one that would build (as its National Security Strategy put it in 2002) a military “beyond challenge.” Let’s be clear on that: no future power, or even bloc of powers, would ever be allowed to challenge it again.

And, in retrospect, can you completely blame them? I mean, it seemed so obvious then that we — the United States of America — were the best and the last. We had, after all, outclassed and outlasted every imperial power since the beginning of time. Even that other menacing superpower of the Cold War era, the Soviet Union, the “Evil Empire” that refused to stand down for almost half a century, had gone up in a puff of smoke.

However, successful collective security is mainly on direct dependence on three conditions:

The states must be roughly equal, or at least there must be no preponderant power.

All states must be willing to share the cost and responsibility of defending one another.

There must be an international body that has the moral authority and military capacity to take effective action.

Introduction:

Nuclear submarines are the leading strike force of a fleet, capable of covertly controlling the expanses of the world’s oceans and quickly deploying in the required directions. They deliver unexpected and powerful strikes from the depths of the ocean on both sea and land targets.

The main striking force of the Russian Navy is nuclear submarines armed with ballistic and cruise missiles with nuclear warheads. They are constantly in various parts of the world’s oceans, ready for immediate use of their strategic weapons. Submarines, armed with cruise missiles, are aimed mainly at combating the enemy’s large surface ships and strike on the enemy’s coastal infrastructure. Torpedo nuclear submarines are used to disrupt the enemy’s underwater and surface communications and in the defense system against the underwater threat, as well as to escort surface ships and missile submarines.

The Taiwanese government is doing damage control after the latest Google Maps upgrade revealed their most sensitive missile sites, down to the launcher types and models of the missiles, for all to see – including archenemy China.

Defense Ministry officials in Taipei are asking Google to blur the missile site locations, which were exposed in painstaking 3D detail in the latest upgrade of Google’s satellite map app, for the sake of national security – while urging the public to remain calm.
Taiwan to talk with Google over exposed missile positionhttps://t.co/mO6SE19bmj pic.twitter.com/XM1DrzNL7Y

— Focus Taiwan (@Focus_Taiwan) February 15, 2019

A former head of NATO’s Military Committee has slammed the US move against the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) as “extremely dangerous” for Europe. This comes after Washington had suspended its obligations under the agreement that ended the arms race between the East and West back in the 1980s.

Former head of the NATO Military Committee and retired Air Force general Harald Kujat has sharply criticised the US for terminating the INF Treaty calling the move “a betrayal of the security of the European allies" in an interview with the Bavarian broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk.

According to the retired commander, the withdrawal from the treaty that ended the nuclear arms race back in 1987 means that the US is saying goodbye to responsibilities to its European allies. This move could be extremely dangerous for Europe, Kujat stated.

Last month, the National Nuclear Security Administration (formerly the Atomic Energy Commission) announced that the first of a new generation of strategic nuclear weapons had rolled off the assembly line at its Pantex nuclear weapons plant in the panhandle of Texas. That warhead, the W76-2, is designed to be fitted to a submarine-launched Trident missile, a weapon with a range of more than 7,500 miles. By September, an undisclosed number of warheads will be delivered to the Navy for deployment.

A number of Syrian Arab Army (SAA) soldiers were hospitalized on Tuesday after the jihadist rebels of Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham fired chemical substances towards their garrison in southeast Idlib.

According to the Arab language version of Sputnik News, Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham fired chemical substances towards the Syrian Arab Army’s positions in the Sham Al-Hafa region.

A new bipartisan resolution making its way through the Senate is aimed at blocking Saudi Arabia from having any path toward the creation of nuclear weapons, placing severe restrictions on Saudi activities if they accept a US civilian nuclear cooperation deal.

If the Saudis accept US nuclear cooperation, the resolution would forbid them from any uranium enrichment, and from any attempted reprocessing of plutonium produced in their reactors. These are the two primary ways nuclear arms could be produced.

The Trump Administration is reportedly in the process of making exactly such a cooperation deal with Saudi Arabia, with Energy Secretary Rick Perry in quiet talks on sharing US civilian nuclear technology with them.

Congressional anger at the Saudis for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi has fueled a lot of resolutions on US-Saudi relations, trying to place additional limits on Saudi access to US technology, to prevent abuses in the future.

Russia issued a mirror-like response to the US decision to suspend the INF Treaty in order to officially exit it in 6 months later. However, Moscow assured that it would not deploy weapons violating the historic accord even if developed them until such US-made weapons appear in Europe and other regions.

The alliance has no plans to deploy new ground-based systems with nuclear weapons in Europe, even following the termination of the INF Treaty, NATO's Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller said in an interview with the German news outlet Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

On Tuesday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that the bloc was getting prepared for a potential cessation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, but it didn't want a new arms race and did not plan to deploy new ground-based missiles in Europe.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is speaking at a press conference in Brussels during the first day of the meeting between the defence ministers of the NATO member states.

The event comes after earlier in February, the United States said it was suspending its obligations under the INF Treaty starting from 2 February and would begin the withdrawal process, which would be completed within six months unless Moscow remedied its alleged violations of the bilateral arms control deal.

Russian President Vladimir Putin later announced that Moscow was also suspending its obligations under the treaty in response to the US move.

Perhaps out of humiliation over the ongoing spectacular tragicomedy that is Brexit, and in desperate need of a distraction from her domestic political troubles, Theresa May has taken a page out of the the US neocon playbook, and has decided to send Britain’s new aircraft carrier to China’s backyard in what The Times has dubbed "a show of strength" - just in case Beijing is unclear how to respond to this hilarious development - because apparently the UK believes it is a US stunt-double when it comes to sending Beijing messages about its territorial ambitions in the South China Sea.

Tehran has brushed off US calls to pull its forces out of Middle East countries, saying that it is the ‘enemy’ Washington who should go back home. It comes as Iran marks 40 years since the Islamic Revolution.
As the US’ own forces start to withdraw from Syria, Washington is increasingly worried that Tehran is getting too entrenched in the war-torn country. The US has repeatedly lambasted Iran for its presence in Syria, where Tehran maintains ‘military advisers.’

On Monday, the deputy head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards fired back at Washington: “The enemy cannot ask us to leave the region. They must leave the region.”

“We will help any Muslim anywhere in the world,” Brigadier General Hossein Salami added.

It’s not the first time that Iran has rejected US demands to curb its ‘influence.’ Last week, a senior aide to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Ali Akbar Velayati, warned: “Whether they want to or not, the Americans must leave Syria.”

CAIRO (Reuters) - The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen launched a targeting operation in the Houthi-held capital, Sanaa, Saudi state TV reported on Saturday.

The operation targeted a location for storing and preparing drones and launch vehicles in Sanaa.

The coalition added that the operation conformed to international law and that measures were taken to protect civilians.

During a Wednesday night interview with FOX Business host Trish Regan, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made several statements that raised eyebrows, such as claiming that Cuba had invaded Venezuela and “taken control” of the Venezuela’s “security apparatus” and that U.S. sanctions illegally imposed on Venezuela “aren’t aimed at the Venezuelan people.”

However, the most surprising claim Pompeo made in the interview was that Hezbollah and Iran were “active” in Venezuela, presenting a national security “risk for America.”

After accusing China, Cuba and Russia of interfering with U.S. efforts to install U.S.-funded opposition figure Juan Guaidó and oust current Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Pompeo made the following assertion:

The United States has sued Lockheed Martin Corp, Lockheed Martin Services Inc, and Mission Support Alliance LLC, as well as a Lockheed executive for alleged false claims and kickbacks on a multibillion-dollar contract to clean up a nuclear site, the Justice Department said on Friday.

The complaint alleges Lockheed paid more than $1 million to Mission Support Alliance executives in order to win a $232 million subcontract for providing management and technology support at the Hanford, Washington site from 2010 through the middle of 2016 at inflated rates.

It also says the defendants lied about the amount of profit included in Lockheed's billing rates.

A Lockheed Martin spokeswoman denied the allegations, saying the company "rejects the suggestion that the corporation or its executives engaged in any wrongdoing. Lockheed Martin will defend this matter vigorously."

A $500-million project to develop an American electromagnetic railgun, in the makings for over a decade, should be used as a failed “case study” on how not to develop new weapons systems, a top US admiral has said.
“I would say that railgun is kind of the case study that would say 'This is how innovation maybe shouldn't happen,'” the chief of naval operations, Adm. John Richardson, told the Atlantic Council. “It's been around, I think, for about 15 years, maybe 20. So ‘rapid’ doesn't come to mind when you’re talking about timeframes like that.”

The futuristic weapon has been in development since 2005 and already cost the US taxpayer a whopping $500 million – and is not expected to enter service in the foreseeable future, if ever, the admiral admitted. Originally the Pentagon envisioned installing the completed weapon on Zumwalt-class destroyers by the mid-2020s.

Having started on Monday, the US Army continues its war drills across the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area through Saturday with the goal of enhancing Army Special Forces skills by "operating in urban environments", Army Special Operations Command said in a statement.

“The local terrain and training facilities in Los Angeles provide the Army with unique locations and simulates urban environments the service members may encounter when deployed overseas,” the Army told CBS.

Downtown Los Angeles residents were shocked Monday night when a fleet of Boeing A/MH-6M Little Bird and Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters swooped in around them.

This is not the first time residents of a major metropolitan area across the US have experienced a military exercise. For instance, in 2015, Texas residents prepared for Jade Helm 15, an army training exercise which took place in multiple states.

Russia has again slammed the United States for being in breach of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) after the US announced last Friday that it's suspending all obligations under the treaty in 180 days, during which time Moscow till has a chance to return to compliance. But this week in an apparent continuing tit-for-tat blame game, the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) summoned the US military attaché in Moscow to issue its own ultimatum.

The MoD reportedly told the US diplomatic representative that the US is in breach, and that it could return to compliance through elimination of its cruise missile launchpads and attack drones — the latter which the Russians said fit the definition of a “land-based cruise missile” under a different form, in accord with the Reagan-era deal.

The message was delivered on Wednesday via a treaty-related memo, the contents of which were first reported by RT as follows:

RUSSIA, the United States and France have test-launched nuclear-capable missiles within hours of one another as fears rise of a return to a Cold War-era arms race amid the abandonment of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

The United States plans to begin deploying modified nuclear weapons in Europe in the first half of 2020, said Anatoly Sidorov, UNTSC chief of the Collective Security Treaty Organization.

“The US intentions are to further exacerbate the international situation is demonstrated by its advanced aviation nuclear weapons mass production program, approved at the end of 2018,” Sidorov told a news conference.

He added that “the deployment of these weapons at Belgian, Dutch, German, Italian and Turkish air bases, where about 200 previous generation unmanned aerial bombs are stored, is expected to begin in the first half of 2020.”

The head of Pentagon policy John Rood said that because the US has been in full compliance with the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty it has no plans to create or deploy an intermediate range missile system.

The Undersecretary of Defense for Policy made his statement after Russia indicated on Tuesday that it will also abandon the INF after the US withdrawal, with plans to develop two new land-based missile launch systems by 2021 to counter US developments in its missile capabilities.

“We don’t have an intermediate range system or something like that that we would, that we’re talking about deploying at this time. We’re going to look at our options in this regard,” Rood said, cited by the Hill.

Those who have not had a chance to experience all the "beauty" of the arms race of the 1960s and the 1970s are incredibly "lucky" today, as they can now understand what it feels like to live within a 4-10 minute flight of a cruise missile to Moscow.

The hand-over ceremony on Wednesday in Merignac, in southwestern France, where the planes are built, was attended by Qatar Defence Minister Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah and Dassault Aviation chief Eric Trappier.

Qatar ordered 24 of the fighters in 2015, adding 12 more last year. It also has an option to buy 36 more.

The twin-engine fighter has been in service with the French Air Force since 2004. France has also sold Mirage F1, Alpha Jets and Mirage 2000 fighters to Qatar.

After failing to sell the Rafale abroad for several years, France finally won a contract from Egypt in 2015 for 24 jets, followed by the sale to Qatar.

In September 2016, India also agreed to buy 36 of the fighters.

Qatar has upped its defence spending after being diplomatically isolated by its Gulf neighbours.