Zephyr Net

The next NATO summit in Warsaw on 8 and 9 July, looks like a provocation against Russia more.

This is serious. A new missile crisis is brewing against Russia, mirror image of that which ended in 1962 the Soviet Union deployed missiles in Cuba, near the United States. The situation was reversed: at the time NATO was fighting against the Warsaw Pact; today it meets in Warsaw! we are facing a provocative policy of encirclement:

1. Continuous expansion of NATO to Russia's borders, despite the guarantees given by the West to Gorbachev in 1989 that this would not happen;

2. deployment of a missile defense shield Aegis in Romania, Poland, Turkey, Spain. Featuring MK41 launch systems, these weapons can be used for defense missions (anti-aircraft, anti-submarine, anti-ship), but also for attack missions against ground targets;

3. deployment in the Baltic countries, Poland and Romania, by rotation, four regiments of a thousand men each and permanent military equipment;

4. formation of a "northern" front against Russia, bringing together NATO members (Denmark, Iceland and Norway) or its Partnership for Peace (Sweden and Finland).

5. modernization of NATO's tactical nuclear weapons in Europe (B61), which aims, in the words of US Senator Dianne Feinstein on March 25, to make them "more usable and to help us fight and win limited nuclear war "

Of course I am not a joke to anyone else. You are so stupid you don't even know how to write an insult.

Go blow yourself. Your head is up your ass already so it shouldn't be to difficult for you to accomplish...

Also FAS has been notified you are stealing their content. Have a nice day asshole...

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Nuclear Escalation in Europe


The United States feigned surprise during the simulation of an attack by the Russian aviation against the USS Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea. And yet, as we have reported, Russia already has the capacity to block the ship’s Communications & Commands, and did so, observes Manlio Dinucci, because the ship was in the process of violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF). Furthermore, the US nuclear deployment occurred as China is developing hypersonic launchers, a part of whose trajectory will be in glide mode, inspiring new research by DARPA. As from now, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin are participating in the Tactical Boost Glide Program.

The White House is «preoccupied» because Russian fighters flew over a US ship at very close range in the Baltic Sea, making a «simulated attack» - as reported by our news agencies. However, they did not inform us as to which ship it was, nor why it was in the Baltic Sea.

In fact, it was the USS Donald Cook, one of the four missile-launching units deployed by the US Navy for the «defence of NATO missiles in Europe». These units, which are to be increased in number, are equipped with the Aegis radar system and SM-3 interceptor missiles, but also with double-capacity Tomahawk cruise missiles, both conventional and nuclear. In other words, they are nuclear attack units equipped with a «shield» designed to neutralise the enemy riposte.

The Donald Cook, which left the Polish port of Gdynia on the 11th April, cruised for two days at scarcely 70 kilometres from the Russian naval base of Kaliningrad, and for that reason was visited by Russian fighters and helicopters. Apart from these missile-launcher ships, the USA/NATO «shield» in Europe, in its present configuration, includes an «advance base» radar site in Turkey, a battery of US ground missiles in Roumania, composed of 24 SM-3 missiles, and another similar battery which is to be installed in Poland.

Moscow has issued a warning – these ground batteries, which are also capable of launching nuclear Tomahawk missiles, constitute an evident violation of the INF Treaty, which forbids European deployment of intermediate-range nuclear missiles.

The United States accuses Russia of provoking «a useless escalation of tensions» with their over-flights – but what would they do if Russia were to send missile-launching units along the US coast-line and install missile batteries in Cuba and Mexico?

No-one is asking this question in the major media, which continues to cloud reality. The latest hidden news - the transfer of F-22 Raptors, the most advanced US nuclear attack fighter-bombers, from Tyndall base in Florida to Lakenheath base in England, announced on the 11th April by the United States European Command.

From England, the F-22 Raptors will be «deployed to other NATO bases in an advanced position, in order to maximise the possibilities for training, and also exercise dissuasion against any action which might destabilise European security».

This is the preparation for the imminent deployment in Europe, including Italy, of more US B61-12 nuclear bombs which, launched from approximately 100 kilometres away, will hit their target with a warhead offering «four selectable power options». This new weapon takes place in the programme for the potentialisation of nuclear forces launched by the Obama administration, which plans, amongst other things, for the construction of 12 more attack submarines (at 7 billion dollars apiece, the first of which is already being built), each one armed with 200 nuclear warheads.


A Russian jet threatening a US warship : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbi5EWjG7DE


The New York Times reports that a new type of nuclear warhead is currently in development, the «hypersonic glide vehicle» which, on its return to the atmosphere, manoeuvers in order to avoid interceptor missiles, and heads for its target at more than 16,800 miles/hour [1]. Russia and China are following, and developing similar weapons.

Meanwhile, Washington is harvesting its fruit. By transforming Europe into the front line of a nuclear conflict, and, with the help of the European governments themselves, is sabotaging EU-Russian economic relations in order to permanently link the EU to the USA via the intermediary of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). By the same token, it is forcing its European allies to increase their military expenditure to the advantage of the US war industry, whose exports have increased by 60% over the last five years, becoming the strongest sector in US exports.

Who said that war doesn’t pay? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWsOHJ9MGE0

Translation
Pete Kimberley

Source
Il Manifesto (Italy)


[1] “Races escalates for latest class of nuclear arms. Shade of a Cold War”, William J. Broad & David E. Sanger, The New York Times, April 17th, 2016.


From : http://www.voltairenet.org/article191409.html

You are an idiot...

Still and always...

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Nuclear Escalation in the Italian Peninsula: the B61-12 bomb has been tested


The B61-12 is an atomic super-bomb. The United States has just completed tests at home on the bomb’s non-nuclear components. This clears the way for it to be now mass-produced and sold to clients right in the heart of the European Union, which, the word on the street would have it, is a peace-broker. Thus the US will fit out the Italian Air Force’s armed forces, striking a double blow: first, violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and second, the Italian Constitution.



The political-media spotlight beams in on the nuclear escalation in the Korean peninsula, and lets slip, unnoticed in the shadows, a similar escalation in on the Italian peninsula. On 13 April [2017], The Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center communicates that, in the polygon of Nellis in Nevada:
“An Air Force F-16 aircraft released an inert B61 nuclear bomb in a test recently, demonstrating the aircraft’s capability to deliver the weapon and testing the functioning of the weapon’s non-nuclear components, including the arming and fire control system, radar altimeter, spin rocket motors and weapons control computer.”

What is the significance of this? It indicates that the B61-12, the new US nuclear bomb, meant to replace the B-61 bomb which has been stored in Italy and other European countries, is now in the engineering phase in preparation for mass production. The many components of the B61-12 are planned and tested in the national laboratories of Los Alamos and Albuquerque (New Mexico), Livermore (California), and produced in a series of plants in Missouri, Texas, South Carolina and Tennessee. On top of these is the tail section, manufactured by Boeing, for precision guidance.

The B61-12 is not the B-61 with a few cosmetic updates. Nay, it is far more than that. It is a weapon sui generis with:
- a nuclear head with four power options to choose from, depending on the object you wish to strike;
- a guidance system that permits it to launch not directly above its target, but some distance from it; and
- the capacity to penetrate into the ground to destroy command centre bunkers in a nuclear first strike.

The test confirms that the new nuclear bomb can be launched by the F-16 fighter bomber (model C/D) of the 31st Fighter Wing, the squadron of US fighter bombers stationed at Aviano (Pordenone) which is now ready for attack with 50 (the number estimated by the FAS, the Federation of American Scientists) B 61 bombs. The communiqué specifies that the B61-12 can be also be launched from Tornado PA-200 bomber fighters, such as those of the 6° Formation of the Italian Air Force stored at Ghedi (Brescia), currently ready for nuclear attack with 20 B61 bombs. While waiting for the F-35 fighter bombers to be delivered to the Italian Air Force, the U.S. Air Force announces that, “the B61-12 will be integrated into the F-35”.

That the Italian pilots are being trained for nuclear attack under US command– reports the FAS [1]– is demonstrated by the presence of the 704th Munitions Support Squadron at Ghedi. This is one of the U.S. Air Force’s four units stationed in European bases (in Italy as well as Germany, Belgium and Holland) “where US nuclear weapons are meant to launch from airplanes of the host state”. Pilots from these four European countries and Turkey are being trained to use the B-61, and now the B61-12, in Steadfast Noon. This is Nato’s annual drill for nuclear war. In 2013, this drill took place at Aviano, and in 2014 at Ghedi.

According to the programme, the B61-12, the cost of which is forecast to be in the range of 8 – 10 billion dollars for 480 bombs, will begin to be mass manufactured in 2020. Thereafter, they will substitute the B-61 in Italy and in the other European countries. Satellite photos that the FAS released, show that in the bases at Aviano and Ghedi, and in other bases both in Europe and Turkey, changes have already been made to achieve this purpose. We still do not know how many B61-12 have been earmarked for Italy; however, we cannot rule out that, in light of the growing sense of unease with Russia, that their number will exceed the number of B61 bombs that are currently stored. Neither is it ruled out that they will be stored, as well as in Aviano and Ghedi, in other bases – for example - Camp Darby where the U.S. Air Force’s bombs are stored.

It is a fact that, in an unprecedented move in 2014, Polish pilots with F-16 C/D fighter bombers took part in the Nato drill for nuclear war carried out at Ghedi. This indicates that in all likelihood, the B61-12 will also be stored in Poland and other countries of the former Eastern bloc. The F-16 fighter bomber and other Nato planes at double capacity, nuclear and conventional, are stationed, in rotation, in the Baltic republics, going right up to the border with Russia.

The B61-12 is defined by the Pentagon as “the fundamental element of the US nuclear triad” (land, sea and air). Come 2020, and the lining up of the B61-12 in Europe (though it is not ruled out that it could well be prior to this date), Italy, which is officially a non-nuclear country, will be transformed into the firing line for an increasingly dangerous nuclear confrontation between the US/Nato on the one hand and Russia on the other.

It is in fact General James Cartwright, the former US Strategic Command, who warns that
“nuclear weapons such as the B61-12 which are less weighty (from 0.3 to 50 kiloton) yet more precise, increase the temptation to use them, which could even be for a pre-emptive nuclear strike rather than in an act of reprisal”.

In such a case, it is beyond doubt that Italy would be the first target for an inevitable nuclear reprisal.

[1] “Status of World Nuclear Forces”, Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, Federation of American Scientists.

From : http://www.voltairenet.org/article196052.html

The US F-35 Bomber: Now in Estonia and Bulgaria…
Lined up in bases, just a few minutes’ plane ride from Russia



On 25 April 2017, two US F-35 fighter planes arrived at the Ämari air base, Estonia, for their “first practice deployment in Europe”. This is code for their first war drill in Europe. Shortly afterwards, on 28 April, another two fighter planes arrived at the Graf Ignatievo airbase, Bulgaria for this same purpose. These planes form part of the group of six F-35A Lightning II that, on 15 April, were transferred from the United States to the English base situated in Lakenheath.

The U.S. Air Force communicates that this is the first overseas “practice deployment” of the US F-35 and emphasizes that this “will strengthen the security of our Nato allies and European partners and demonstrate our commitment to both regional and global security”. At the welcome ceremony, the Estonian Minister of Defense, Tsahkna declared, that “ hosting such an advanced airplane, acknowledges the important role played by this base”. Ämari is indeed the principal base of the Nato mission for “air patrolling” the Baltic, where bomber fighters, provided in rotation by the members of the Alliance (including Italy) are ready to take off 24/7 “in rapid response to violations of their air space”. The base is situated around 200 km from the Russian territory and around 400 km from the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, which a fighter plane can reach in a few minutes. Also of strategic importance is Graf Ignatievo, one of the four US bases in Bulgaria, a little more that 500 km from the territory of Russia.

The choice of these bases for the first F-35 drill outside the US has multiple objectives. Its most important: to strengthen the “European Reassurance Initiative”, the operation the United States launched in 2014 to “reassure” their Nato allies and European partners against “a Russia that is growing in its desire to assert its will through aggressive actions”. For such operation, in which falls the lining up of the US 3a armoured Brigade in Poland, 3.4 billion dollars have been earmarked for tax year 2017.

At the same time, the F-35 drill serves to “integrate the new fighter plane of the 5a generation into Nato’s infrastructure”. For now, the U.S. Air Force communicates, it is not anticipating using F-35 in “air patrolling” the Baltic, but “if necessary, the fighter plane could be used in combat”.

Another aim of the exercise, carried out right at the edge of Russia’s border, is to test the F-35’s capacity to dodge the Russian radars. This is in fact evidence of a nuclear attack: the new fighter plane is in fact assigned to be the principal vehicle for the B61-12, the new nuclear bomb that from 2020 the US will substitute for the current B-61. Italy will provide both the F-35 and the B61-12, that can be used in operations under US command.

The drill also aims at demonstrating that Lockheed Martin’s new fighter plane, despite its many technical problems, is finally “combat ready”, rebutting the warnings of those who were confident that it would never fly. On 26 April, Lockheed Martin received a 109 million dollar contract to upgrade one of so many software packages for the fighter plane. On 1 May, it has received another contract valued at 1.4 billion dollars for the first phase in the production of 130 F-35 Lightning II planes of Batch 12, earmarked for the United States and other countries.

It is now essential that the “combat ready” fighter plane is used in some war, so that it can be declared “combat proven”. In anticipation, it is sent to Estonia and Bulgaria, to fight the new cold war against Russia, “to provide comfort” to us, Europeans.

From : http://www.voltairenet.org/article196265.html

So here it is: the Pentagon’s plan for Europe


In preparation for President Trump’s visit to Europe (24 May: Rome; 25 May: the Nato Summit, Brussels; 26- 27 May: the G7 Summit at Taormina), the Pentagon presented its strategic plan for the “European theatre”. Its spokesperson? General Curtis Scaparrotti who, as the head of the US’s European Command, automatically becomes the head of Nato, holding the office of Supreme Allied Commander for Europe. On 2 May, in the US Senate, the General recalls that “the European theatre remains critical to our national interests” and that “the Nato Alliance gives us a unique advantage over our adversaries”. Yet such an advantage has now been placed in danger by a “resurgent Russia [that] seeks to undermine the Western-led international order and reassert itself as a global power”.

The Supreme Commander calls on its European allies to close in ranks around the United States to defend by every possible means, the “international order” – the one that is founded on the economic, political and military supremacy of the West – endangered by the emergence of new states and social subjects.

Its focus is transfixed on Russia, accusing it of “malign activities and military actions against Ukraine” (precisely at the time of the third anniversary of the massacre of dozens of Russians, that took place at Odessa on 2 May 2014, at the hands of Neo Nazi Ukrainians under USA/Nato command. However, the “threat” is not coming from Russia alone: the United States – declared Admiral Harris, Head of the Pacific Command – is challenged in that region at the same time by “an aggressive China and a revanchist Russia”.

In response to these challenges, announces Scaparrotti, the US European Command, “we are returning to our historic role as a war-fighting command, adjusting our plans to the threats that we have in front of us”. This is why he is imploring Congress to increase the funds for the “European Reassurance Initiative”, an operation launched by the USA officially to “reassure” its Nato allies and European partners and for which 3.4 billion dollars has been earmarked in 2017. “These are necessary, significant investments – emphasizes the General – to increase throughout Europe our advanced presence, the pre-positioning of military materials, the drills in preparation for conflicts”.

The plan is clear and is already underway: to transform Europe into the firing line for yet another confrontation with Russia. The announcement made on 4 May, confirms this: that the US Army in Europe had built a new headquarters at Poznan, Poland, to command more than 6,000 US soldiers that have been lined up in Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Germany, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria in order to “strengthen Nato’s Eastern flank, serving as a deterrence to Russia”.

In this lining up on the Eastern flank, which includes armoured forces, fighter bombers, war ships and missile units (including nuclear ones) – are participating Nato European powers. This is demonstrated by France sending her troops and Britain her tanks, to Estonia.

And what about the European army? At the meeting of the EU Defense Ministers, on 27 April at Malta, the Nato Secretary General, Stoltenberg left no room for doubt: “it was clearly agreed by the European Union that its objective is not to build a new European army or structures of command in competition with Nato’s, but something that may complement what Nato is doing”.

The sceptre of command thus remains squarely in the hands of the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, a US general appointed by the US President.

From : http://www.voltairenet.org/article196297.html

The US flag covers Three Seas in Europe

While the European Union seems to be swamped with internal problems, the United States has launched a shake-up of Central Europe under the title, “The Three Seas Initiative”. This is a huge project, the brainchild of the Obama Administration and put in motion by the Trump Administration. The end-game? Creating an Anti-Russian bloc that will protect Western Europe.



What a triumph it will be for President Trump, when he arrives on an official visit to Warsaw on 6 July! Poland, assures the White House, is a “loyal Nato ally, and one of the US’s closest friends”. As it happens, Poland is the launching pad for the US/Nato strategy that has dragged Europe yet again into a Cold War against Russia. It is to Poland, that the armoured US 3a Brigade has been transferred. This Brigade is one of the four groups of Nato battalions under US command “with advanced empowered presence” lined up in an anti-Russian function.

Poland is also credited with being one of the four European Nato countries that has achieved the target, set by the US in 2014, of spending more than 2% of the GDP on the military. To off-set this expenditure, Warsaw announces, Poland will not be contributing to the “Defence Fund” launched by 22 June 2017.

So, in Washington’s eyes, President Duda’s Poland is well resourced to take on board another onerous commitment: launching and driving “the Three Seas Initiative” a new project that brings together 12 countries situated between the Baltic, the Black Sea and the Adriatic: Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Austria, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Slovakia and Slovenia. As all of them are EU members, President Duda defines the Initiative “a new concept to promote European Unity”.

But with the exception of Austria, all these countries are at the same time, members of US-led Nato. And Washington exercises a stronger pull over these countries than does Brussels.

The “Three Seas Initiative” will be held at President Trump’s “inauguration”, i.e. the forthcoming conference to be held in Warsaw on 6 July; however, it is noteworthy that the initiative was conceived within the Obama Administration. This was announced on 25 August 2016 by the Joint Declaration of Dubrovnik, that presented it as an initiative aimed at “connecting the economies and infrastructures of Central and Eastern Europe from the North to the South, expanding cooperation in the sectors of energy, transport, digital communication and the economy generally”. The official reason: “to make Central and Eastern Europe more secure and competitive”. The US will think about this.

In his speech at the Conference on the Three Seas, announces the White House, President Trump “will focus on developing infrastructure and energy security, evidencing, among other things, the first deliveries of American NLG (natural liquid gas) to Poland shortly within four months”. A terminal in the Baltic port of Swinoujscie, costed around a billion dollars, will permit Poland to import US LNG, to the tune of 5 billion m3 per year, which can be increased to 7.5 billion m3 per year.

Through this and other terminals, including the one planned for Croatia, gas sourced from the US or from other countries through US companies, will be distributed by the relevant gas pipelines to the entire “Three Seas region”. The plan’s aim is clear:
• to blame Russia thus reducing its gas exports to Europe - this objective can only be achieved if the export of US gas (which is more expensive than Russian gas), will be encouraged by substantial state subsidies;
• to make Central and Eastern Europe, in competition with Germany and other European powers, gravitate even more closely to the US, not only militarily but also economically; and
• to create within Europe a macro-region with limited sovereignty, being directly under US influence: the Three Seas.

This would essentially fragment the European Union and enlarge Ukraine and others. While Europe’s political map is changing once again, the flag that flies there is still the Star Spangled Banner.

From : http://www.voltairenet.org/article197082.html

- Nato’s PESCO rib is born -

The establishment of PESCO makes absolutely clear the plan for “a Europe for Defense”. In any event, PESCO has limited potential. Sure, a sovereign entity has come onto the scene, but it’s one that can’t compete with Nato, but can only complement it. In principle, the next stage should position this “Europe for Defense” so that France controls its nuclear force and Germany controls its conventional force. Any part of PESCO can only be harnessed if the Pentagon gives the order. And this green light will only come on when the US’s military objectives need to be sub-contracted.



The Defense Ministers of the 23 EU states that are also Nato members are singing from the same
hymn sheet as they celebrate their submission to the Pentagon.

After a 60 year gestation period, Roberta Pinotti, the Defense Minister announces that “PESCO” is on the verge of being born in December. PESCO is a EU “Permanent Structured Cooperation” in the military sector. To start with, 23 of the 27 EU member states are participating in it.

Jens Stoltenberg, Nato’s Secretary General, explains what this cooperation might entail. Participating in the EU’s Council for Foreign Affairs, he emphasizes, “the importance, evidenced by so many European leaders, of European Defense needing to be developed so that it does not compete with Nato, but rather complements it”.

The first way of achieving this is for each European member state to increase its individual military expenditure. PESCO establishes that one of the “joint ambitious and rather onerous undertakings” is “the periodic increase in real terms of the defense balance sheets in order to reach the agreed objectives”. 21 of the 27 EU member states are Nato members. Nato’s continuously increasing budget now has the additional expenditure of the European Defense Fund through which the EU will earmark 1.5 billion euro per year to finance research projects in military technology and to buy shared arms systems.

This will be the base line figure, destined to increase over the years. On top of PESCO, are additional costs for “developing new capabilities and preparing to participate together in military operations”. “Capabilities complementing Nato requirements”: on 8 November 2017, Nato’s North Atlantic Council resolved to adapt the command structure so that, “the capacity to strengthen the Allies quickly and effectively” in Europe would be increased.

For this purpose, two new commands are established. A Command for the Atlantic, with the mandate of maintaining “free and secure maritime lines of communication between Europe and the United States, vital for our Transatlantic Alliance”. A Command for Mobilization, tasked with “improving Nato military forces’ capability to move through Europe”.

To enable forces and arms to be moved rapidly on European territory, the Nato Secretary General explains that European countries must “remove many bureaucratic obstacles”. Much has been done since 2014, but there is still a lot of work that needs doing so that “national laws that facilitate military forces passing across borders are fully applied”. Moreover Stoltenberg adds that Nato needs to have available in Europe, sufficient capability to transport soldiers and arms, largely provided by the private sector.

It is even more important for Europe’s “civil infrastructure – such as roads, bridges, railways, airports and ports to be improved– so that they are adapted to Nato’s military requirements”. In other words, European countries must carry out, at their own expense, works to make the civil infrastructure fit for their military use: for example a bridge that is fit for the traffic of trams and lorries will have to be strengthened to allow tanks to pass.

This is the strategy that PESCO forms part. This strategy is the expression of dominant European interests that, while colliding with US interests, then realign themselves in harmony with them, within a Nato under US Command. This occurs whenever the fundamental interests of the West endangered by a world that is changing, are at stake. So when the “Russian Threat” kicks off, it will be confronted by a “United Europe”, which, while slashing its welfare expenditure and blocking off its internal borders to migrants, balloons its military expenditure and dismantles its internal borders when it comes to soldiers and tanks, so that they can roam about freely within.


Manlio Dinucci

Translation
Anoosha Boralessa

Source
Il Manifesto (Italy)

From : http://www.voltairenet.org/article198918.html

Newly Declassified Documents: Gorbachev Told NATO Wouldn't Move Past East German Border

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was given a host of assurances that the NATO alliance would not expand past what was then the East German border in 1990 according to new declassified documents.

Russian leaders often complain that the NATO extended an invitation to Hungary, Poland and what was then Czechoslovakia to joint the alliance in 1997 at the Madrid Summit in contravention of assurances offered to the Soviet Union before its 1991 collapse. The alliance has dismissed the notion that such assurances were offered, however, scholars have continued to debate the issue for years. Now, however, newly declassified documents show that Gorbachev did in fact receive assurances that NATO would not expand past East Germany.

“The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991,” George Washington University National Security Archives researchers Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton wrote. “That discussions of NATO in the context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German territory, and that subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the highest levels.”

Indeed, Russian Presidents Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin have complained bitterly about the expansion of NATO towards their borders despite what they had believed were assurances to the contrary. “What happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today?” Putin said at the Munich Conference on Security Policy in 2007.“No one even remembers them. But I will allow myself to remind this audience what was said. I would like to quote the speech of NATO General Secretary Mr. Woerner in Brussels on 17 May 1990. He said at the time that: ‘the fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee.’ Where are these guarantees?”

As the newly declassified documents show, the Russians might have had a point. While it was previously understood that Secretary of State James Baker’s assurance to Gorbachev that NATO would not expand “not one inch eastward” during a February 9, 1990, meeting was only in the context of German reunification, the new documents show that this was not the case.

Gorbachev only accepted German reunification—over which the Soviet Union had a legal right to veto under treaty—because he received assurances that NATO would not expand after he withdrew his forces from Eastern Europe from James Baker, President George H.W. Bush, West German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the CIA Director Robert Gates, French President Francois Mitterrand, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, British foreign minister Douglas Hurd, British Prime Minister John Major, and NATO secretary-general Manfred Woerner.

Indeed, as late as March 1991, the British were reassuring Gorbachev that they could not foresee circumstances under which NATO might expand into Eastern and Central Europe. As former British Ambassador to the Soviet Union recounted in March 5, 1991, Rodric Braithwaite, both British foreign minister Douglas Hurd and British Prime Minister John Major told the Soviet that NATO would not expand eastwards.

“I believe that your thoughts about the role of NATO in the current situation are the result of misunderstanding,” Major had told Gorbachev. We are not talking about strengthening of NATO. We are talking about the coordination of efforts that is already happening in Europe between NATO and the West European Union, which, as it is envisioned, would allow all members of the European Community to contribute to enhance [our] security.”

Of course, later, in 1994, Bill Clinton decided to expand NATO eastward despite the various assurances that the previous administration had offered Gorbachev—and despite legendary diplomat George F. Kennan’s repeated warnings.

Svetlana Savranskaya and Tom Blanton’s full report along with 30 of these documents can be found here: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early#.WjAX9r_XxYI.twitter

From : http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/newly-declassified-documents-gorbachev-told-nato-wouldnt-23629

- US plans $200 million buildup of European air bases flanking Russia -




The U.S. will invest in air bases in Eastern Europe and elsewhere on the continent so they can temporarily house stealth fighters like the F-22 Raptor and other assets to deter Russian aggression. (Tech. Sgt. Jason Robertson/Air Force)



The U.S. is planning to spend more than $200 million to repair and build U.S. military structures and installations on air bases that dot much of Eastern Europe, part of an ongoing initiative to deter Russian aggression.

The fiscal 2018 annual defense legislation, signed into law Dec. 12 by President Donald Trump, authorizes the Air Force secretary to purchase land and build installations outside of the United States. This year’s defense spending plan includes roughly $214 million to construct installations in Iceland, Norway and much of Eastern Europe.

The funds are part of the European Deterrence Initiative, or EDI. Formerly known as the European Reassurance Initiative, the EDI was initiated several months after the Russian annexation of Crimea and subsequent violence in eastern Ukraine, where still today Russian forces back Ukrainian separatists.

“As we continue to address the dynamic security environment in Europe, EDI funding increases our capabilities to deter and defend against Russian aggression,” reads an EDI fact sheet. “Additionally, these significant investments will further galvanize U.S. support to the collective defense of our NATO Allies, as well as bolster the security and capacity of our U.S. partners.”

STEALTH, RECON ASSETS

In what appears to be a build-up reminiscent of the Cold War, some of these bases will temporarily house high-tech stealth fighters like the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Strike Fighter and reconnaissance assets to hunt down Russian subs lurking in the North and Baltic Seas.

“While we can’t provide specific details on future operations and locations, we continuously look for opportunities for our fifth-generation aircraft to conduct interoperability training with our allies and partners in the European theater,” said Maj. Juan Martinez, a spokesperson for U.S. European Command.

At Naval Air Station Keflavik, Iceland, slightly more than $14 million is being invested to build new hangars to house sub-hunting Navy P-8 Poseidon aircraft, according to Foreign Policy. The development at the air station is in reaction to provocations by Russian stealth subs near the GIUK Gap.


The GIUK gap — which stands for Greenland, Iceland, and the United Kingdom — is a naval chokepoint with large gaps between the three regions. The gap serves as a strategic gateway for Russian subs to access the Atlantic Ocean, and was a major inflection point during World War II for German U-Boats.

Infrastructure improvements in Europe on installations such as airfields, training centers and ranges will improve U.S. and allied military readiness in the region, support various activities and events, and improve theater joint reception, staging, movement and integration, Martinez said.

While the U.S. is investing heavily in building up these air bases, there are no plans for U.S. troops or airmen to be stationed at these bases permanently. The bases will serve as rotational hubs where U.S. troops and air platforms can move in and out, as needed. Most of the bases have hosted U.S. aircraft before, Martinez told Military Times.

In September 2015, Amari Air Base in Estonia hosted U.S. F-22 Raptors and a KC-135 air refueling tanker, one of the handful of Eastern European bases that can accommodate fifth-generation fighters.

During that same month, Kecskemet Air Base in Hungary housed F-15 Eagle fighter aircraft from the 123rd Expeditionary Fighter Squadron as part of a temporary forward deployment from Campia Turzii, Romania.

Sanem, Luxembourg is already home to the U.S. Air Forces in Europe Central Region Storage Facility and the 86th Materiel Maintenance Squadron, which is part of the 86th Airlift Wing, out of Ramstein Air Base, Germany.

Some of the construction and repairs will include new runways and fuel storage capabilities. At Kecskemet Air Base, more than $55 million is being invested “to increase fuel storage capacity, construct a parallel taxiway and upgrade the airfield,” Martinez told Military Times. “All of these enhancements will bolster U.S. Air Forces in Europe ability to increase responsiveness and readiness.”





From : https://www.airforcetimes.com/flashpoints/2017/12/17/us-plans-200-million-buildup-of-european-air-bases-flanking-russia/

- The USA and the EU quarrel, but remain united against Russia and China -

It is particularly important, in this period of accelerated evolution of international positions, not to become blinded by one element or another, but to conserve all the elements under close scrutiny. By observing simultaneously the G7, NATO and the OCS, geographer Manlio Dinucci reveals the direction chosen by the Western powers.


On 8 June 2018 in Brussels, the members of NATO (including 6 members of the G7) handed themselves new means with which to hamper the development of Russia. Present were French General Denis Mercier and the US Defense Secretary General Jim Mattis. At the same time, in Quebec, the members of the G7 were squabbling about customs taxes.

While the G7 is fissuring over the war on customs duties, the same conflicting actors are regrouping to reinforce NATO and its network of partners.

Trump’s tactical proposal to restore the G8 - aimed at harnessing Russia to a G7 + 1, thus separating it from China - was rejected by European leaders and even the EU itself, who fear being overridden by Washinton-Moscow negotiations.

However, the proposition was approved by the new Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. Trump called him a “good boy” and invited him to the White House.

Nonetheless, this remains a communal strategy. This is confirmed by the latest decisions taken by NATO, whose main members are the United States, Canada, Germany, France, Great Britain and Italy, plus Japan as a partner — in other words, all the powers of the G-7.

The meeting of 29 Defense ministers (for Italy Elisabetta Trenta, 5 Stelle), on June 7, unanimously decided to strengthen the anti-Russisa command structure by more than 1,200 personnel; to set up a new Joint Force Command for the Atlantic, based in Norfolk (USA), against «Russian submarines that threaten maritime communication lines between the United States and Europe»; to set up a new Logistics Command, based in Ulm (Germany), as a "deterrent" against Russia, with the task of "moving troops faster across Europe in any conflict".

"Military mobility" is at the heart of the NATO-EU cooperation, which will be strengthened by a new agreement next July.

By 2020, NATO will deploy in Europe, 30 mechanised battalions, 30 air squadrons and 30 combat vessels, ready to use within 30 days or less against Russia.

To this end, as requested by the US, the European allies and Canada have increased their military spending by 87 billion dollars since 2014 and are committed to increasing it even more. Germany will take it in 2019 to an average of 114 million Euros a day and plans to increase it by 80% by 2024.

Germany, France, Great Britain, Canada and Italy, while they quarrel with the US at the G7 in Canada about customs taxes, in Europe are participating under US command in the Saber Strike excercise which mobilises 18,000 soldiers from 19 countries. The excercise was scheduled between 3 and 15 June in Poland and the Baltic, close to the Russian territory.

The same six members of the G7, plus Japan, will be participating in the Pacific, still under US command, in Rimpac 2018, the largest naval exercise in the world, aimed at China.

In these ’war games’, from Europe to the Pacific, Israeli forces are participating for the first time.

The Western powers, divided by contrasting interests, are composing a united front in order to hold on, by any means necessary – war and more war - to their imperial domination of the world, which is threatened by the emergence of new state and social subjects.

At the same time as the G7 was splitting on the question of customs duties in Canada, China and Russia signed new economic agreements in Beijing. China is Russia’s biggest trade partner and Russia is China’s largest fuel supplier. Trade between the two countries will increase this year to around 100 billion dollars.

China and Russia cooperate in the development of the New Silk Road through 70 countries of Asia, Europe and Africa. The project — which contributes to "a multipolar world order and more democratic international relations" (Xi Jinping) — is opposed by both the US and the European Union — 27 of the 28 EU ambassadors in Beijing (with the exception of Hungary) claim that the project violates free trade and aims to divide Europe.

It is not only the G7, but the unipolar world order imposed by the West, which is under threat.
Manlio Dinucci

Translation
Pete Kimberley

Source
Il Manifesto (Italy)

From : http://www.voltairenet.org/article201491.html

- The USA and NATO ousts crisis-ridden EU -

President Trump remains compelled by the US system to defend NATO, currently the main tool of transnational imperialism. Despite his attempts, his vassals refuse to free themselves and make their own way. He is therefore pursuing the policies of his predecessors by infantilising the Europeans and turning them against Russia. Anticipating a possible dissolution of the European Union, some of its members have engaged a little more deeply in NATO.


Refusing to assume its independence from the United States, while also refusing to fall under the influence of the European protesters, a group of states led by France has chosen to reinforce its subordination to NATO.

Two summits, both in Brussels at a two-week interval, represent the status quo of the European situation. The meeting of the European Council on 28 June confirmed that the Union, founded on the interests of the economic and financial oligarchies, beginning with those of the greatest powers, is presently crumbling because of its conflicts of interest, which are not limited to the migrant question.

The North Atlantic Council – to be attended, on 10-11 July, by the heads of state and government of 22 EU countries (of a total of 28), members of the Alliance (with Great Britain leaving the Union) – will reinforce NATO under US command. President Donald Trump will therefore be holding the strongest cards at the bilateral Summit which is to be held five days later, on 16 July in Helsinki, with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Whatever the US President stipulates at the negotiating table, it will fundamentally affect the situation in Europe. The fact that the USA have never wanted a unified Europe as an equal ally is no secret to anyone. For more than 40 years, during the Cold War, they maintained Europe in subordination as the front line of the nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union. In 1991, when the Cold War was over, the United States feared that the European allies could question their leadership or decide that NATO was now obsolete, overtaken as it was by the new geopolitical situation. This is the reason for the strategic reorientation of NATO, still under US command, recognised by the Treaty of Maastricht as the « foundation for the defence » of the European Union, and also for its expansion towards the East, linking the former countries of the Warsaw Pact more to Washington than Brussels.

During the wars waged after the end of the Cold War (Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq for the second time, Libya, Syria), the United States were pursuing secret deals with the greatest European powers (Great Britain, France, Germany) and sharing with them certain zones of influence, while from the other European states (including Italy) they obtained what they wanted without any substantial concessions.

Washington’s main objective is not only to keep the European Union in a subordinate position, but even more so, to prevent the formation of an economic zone which could unite all of Europe, including Russia, by connecting to China with the developing « new Silk Road ». This has led to the new Cold War that was triggered in Europe in 2014 (during the Obama administration), and the economic sanctions and the escalation of NATO’s strategy against Russia.

The strategy of « divide and rule », originally dressed up in the costumes of diplomacy, is now clear for all to see. When he met President Macron in April, Trump suggested that France should leave the European Union, offering him commercial conditions more advantageous than those of the EU. We do not know what is being decided in Paris. But it is significant that France launched a plan anticipating joint military operations with a group of EU countries, a plan made independently of the decision-making apparatus of the EU. The agreement was signed in Luxembourg, on 25 June, by France, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Estonia and the United Kingdom, which would therefore be able to participate even after its exit from the EU in March 2019. The French Minister for Defence, Florence Parly, noted that Italy has not yet signed the agreement because of « a question of details, not substance ».

In fact, the plan was approved by NATO, since it « completes and augments the rapidity of the armed forces of the Alliance ». And, as underlined the Italian Minister for Defence Elisabetta Trenta, because the « European Union must become a provider of security at the international level, and to do so, it must reinforce its cooperation with NATO ».

Manlio Dinucci

Translation
Pete Kimberley

Source
Il Manifesto (Italy)

From : http://www.voltairenet.org/article201818.html

You are such an ass... You don't know how to edit FA... Cant even fly it worth a crap, and yet you come here with your political bs... Back on the block list you go.

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