Murakhovsky: New US base notwithstanding, the Black Sea can no longer be turned into a NATO Lake
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/08/murakhovsky-new-us-base-notwithstanding.html
In late July, the construction of the Operations Center for a US military base on the Ukrainian coast. The base will be located in Ochakov in the Mykolayiv region. This is one of three construction projects carried out by the 1st mobile construction battalion of the US Navy in the Ukrainian Navy Ochakovo Base, where the 5th surface ship brigade of the Ukrainian Navy now officially is based. Earlier it was reported that the US is also going to supply Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine for about $ 50 million.
Pravda asked Victor Murakhovsky to comment on the situation. He is editor-in-chief of the journal Arsenal of the Fatherland, a member of the expert council of the board of the Military-Industrial Commission of the Russian Federation, and a reserve colonel.
- The Pentagon is building a military base in Ochakov. In your opinion, what are the global goals they are pursuing?
- The United States is everywhere trying to establish its presence, supposedly temporary, but, in fact, forever. We see this on the example of the base in Kosovo. This facility came in like a peacekeeping operation, but as a result this base turned into one of the largest in Europe. Now it is used for the transit of weapons and people to different regions, and Europe, and the Middle East, and so on. Therefore, even here, in the guise of the need to improve security during the annual exercises that NATO is carrying out with the participation of Ukraine, the Americans are trying to gain a foothold in a region that is of great interest to them. The United States is especially worried that the Russian inter-agency group is deployed on the Crimean Peninsula.
- That is, the Americans have failed with the Crimea, so they are struggling to catch on the Ukrainian Black Sea coast?
- Yes exactly. With the Crimea they have a failure, now they want to take revenge. In my opinion, the statement that this facility is being built to ensure joint action during the annual exercises is a cover for the purpose of information noise. It is possible that the center in Ochakov will be used by Americans to conduct reconnaissance. Firstly, radio engineering and cyber intelligence. All this is done in order to try to observe the situation in the Crimea and in the whole water area of the Black Sea.
- Is it likely that in the operational center of the Navy at the Ukrainian naval base the a base of Seal Teams will be located?
- I think that Americans will not do this on a permanent basis. There is no military meaning in this.
- How in general can the appearance of the Navy center at the Ukrainian naval base in Ochakov affect the situation in the region?
- Most of the Black Sea countries are now members of NATO. For us it was once friendly Bulgaria, once friendly Romania, Greece, as well as Turkey. These are all NATO countries. They tried at the time to include Ukraine in this process, so that the Black Sea would become an internal NATO lake. Now the situation in the military-strategic plan has radically changed. We demonstrated this during the operation in Syria.
And the fact that Crimea is part of Russia completely excludes the possibility of converting the Black Sea into a territory controlled by NATO.
* In June, over 20 Russian ships appeared to be 20 miles inland, while at sea
* Experts suggest that this was due to Russia testing a GPS spoofing system
* Such a system could be used by hackers to misdirect autonomous vehicles
* And if used by state operators, it could cause huge ships to collide
Is Russia developing a GPS spoofing system? Ships in the Black Sea may have been misdirected by a new cyber weapon, experts claim
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4781714/Is-Russia-developing-GPS-spoofing-system.html
Last month, the US Maritime Administration filed a bizarre report, in which at least 20 Russian ships appeared on trackers to be in the same spot 20 miles (32 kilometres) inland, despite being at various positions in the Black Sea.
While this initially appeared to be a glitch, experts now suggest that Russia may have been testing a new system for spoofing GPS.
If this is the case, it could be a worrying first step towards electronic warfare in which movements can't be traced.
The report was filed by the US Maritime Administration after the master of a ship off the coast of Russia discovered that his GPS had put him in the wrong spot. _https://www.marad.dot.gov/msci/alert/2017/2017-005a-gps-interference-black-sea/
And after contacting other ships nearby, the captain discovered that the same issue had affected at least 30 other ships.
Speaking to New Scientist, experts have said that they think the incident is the first documented use of GPS misdirection.
Previous studies have suggested that the biggest threat to GPS is jamming, in which the satellite signal is masked with noise. But while this can be an issue, it is very easy to detect – unlike spoofing.
David Last, former president of the UK's Royal Institute of Navigation told New Scientist:
'Jamming just causes the receiver to die, spoofing causes the receiver to lie.' Other experts have been warning of such a threat for years.
In 2013, Dr Tod Humphreys, an associate professor in robotics at the University of Texas at Austin showed that a yacht could be lured off-course by GPS spoofing. Dr Humphreys said: 'The receiver's behaviour in the Black Sea incident was much like during the controlled attacks my team conducted.' Dr Humphreys suggests that Russia has been testing out a new form of electronic warfare.
Since 2016, phone apps, including Pokemon Go, have been mysteriously redirecting users from the Kremlin to Vnukovo Airport, 20 miles (32 kilometres away). And it seems that GPS spoofing has now extended beyond the Kremlin.
While Dr Humphreys' GPS spoofing system was technically very difficult to create, he says that more modern versions could easily be built with commercial hardware and software easily accessible online.
The amount of power needed for GPS spoofing is also not very high, and Dr Humphreys predicts that a transmitter would need just one-watt of power. And as GPS spoofing systems become easier to make, Dr Humphreys highlights that any hacker could make their own version. This could allow hackers to carry out a range of dangerous tasks, including diverting driverless cars or drones, or even hijacking ships.
The biggest threat, however, is GPS spoofing in the hands of a state operator, according to Dr Humphreys.
He said: 'It affects safety-of-life operations over a large area. In congested waters with poor weather, such as the English Channel, it would likely cause great confusion, and probably collisions. 'My gut feeling is that this is a test of a system which will be used in anger at some other time.'
Defense expert have warned that the multi-billion-dollar US missile systems may not be capable of defending the country against possible missile attacks, as the war of words is escalating between Washington and Pyongyang.
US missile systems not accurately tested against real threats: Report
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2017/08/12/531453/North-Korea-US-missile-system
In a report, Reuters cited
defense experts as saying that the purportedly successful tests that the Pentagon conducted earlier do not accurately simulate the real wartime conditions, despite spending $40 billion over research and development within a period of 18 years.
On May 30, the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) conducted 10 successful tests out of 18 attempts of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system.
The GMD is a network of radars, anti-ballistic missiles and other equipment aimed at protecting the US from intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
While the GMD tests took place in daytime to intercept a single missile, experts say the conditions do not match scenarios for possible missile attacks from North Korea.
In an interview with Reuters published on Thursday, Riki Ellison, the chairman of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, stressed that
the GMD needs more strenuous tests against threats such as multiple warheads that use devices to confuse missile defense systems.
Physicist Laura Grego, who studies missile defense at the Union of Concerned Scientists, says the publicly available data cannot confirm the Pentagon's assessment that the GMD worked effectively under realistic testing conditions.
The latest test failed to consider the possibility of Pyongyang using complex countermeasures and decoys to confuse the anti-ballistic missile's "kill vehicle."
Kill vehicle pops off the top of the defending missile above the earth's atmosphere and tracks and destroys the warhead of the attacking missile.
Decoys and countermeasures confuse the kill vehicle to make it target the wrong object and allow the real warhead pass toward its objective.
The Pentagon plans to conduct the next GMT test in 2018 which aims to intercept multiple inbound warheads, instead of a single one.
The debates over the effectiveness of the US missile system come against the backdrop of an exchange of threats between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
An engine malfunction forced a US fighter pilot to eject from his aircraft during an emergency landing at Bahrain International Airport. The pilot had taken off from a US supercarrier in the Gulf before the incident on Saturday.
US fighter jet makes crash landing at Bahrain airport (PHOTOS)
https://www.rt.com/news/399410-us-fighter-jet-bahrain/
Delays were reported by passengers at the airport following the incident. Images corroborated by RT.com show the F/A-18E next to the runway tipped on to one wing.
Breaking; just a few minutes ago a US-navy F/A-18E/F Super Hornet has made a crash landing on runway 30 in Bahrain. Photos taken from the lounge at the main airport terminal, it shows the aircraft made a crash landing that left a long trail of debris along the runway and ended up on the side with the stabilators and landing gear apparently heavily damaged. Nobody seems to be injured fortunately, but the airport is closed for now. #news #crash #avgeek #aviationnews #aviation #flight #flying #aircraft #breaking #f18 #usnavy #aviationphoto #instaphoto #instanews #instadaily #instagramaviation @instagramaviation
The aircraft had planned to divert to Sheik Isa Airbase following the malfunction. When this could not be accomplished it made the landing instead at Bahrain International Airport, the US Navy’s 5th fleet said in a statement.
“Due to the malfunction, the aircraft could not be stopped on the runway and the pilot ejected from the aircraft as it departed the runway,” the statement said. Bahrain’s Ministry of Transport and Communications confirmed the incident, saying no injuries occurred.
For the second time in just over a year, the Marine Corps ordered all of the branch's aircraft to suspend flight operations for a 24-hour “operational reset” following two deadly aviation accidents in recent weeks.
Marine Corps orders 24-hour grounding of flights for all aircraft following deadly crashes
https://www.rt.com/usa/399373-marines-24hr-pause-aircraft/
In a press release issued Friday
General Robert Neller, Commandant of the US Marine Corps, directed all US Marine Corps aviation units to “conduct an operational reset for a 24 hour-period.”
The operational pause will affect all Marine Corps aircraft, including those stationed abroad as well as deployed units. However, officials said that “no operational commitments will be impacted” during the pause.
All units were directed to conduct the temporary pause over the next two weeks, but each unit commander was given the flexibility to carry out the pause at their own discretion, “based on their unit's operational commitments.”
Marine Corps spokesman Captain Christopher Harrison told USNI News that commanders of the deployed squadrons will be given an extension if the pause would cause them to sacrifice their operational obligations.
Neller ordered the pause in order to conduct a refresher course “on the fundamentals of safe flight operations, standardization, and combat readiness.”
“The intent is for flying squadrons to review selected incidents which occurred enterprise-wide and study historical examples of completed investigations in order to bring awareness and best practices to the fleet,” officials said in the press release.
The pause comes in the weeks after two major Marine Corps aviation accidents resulted in the loss of nearly 20 lives. Last week, three Marines died when a tilt-rotor MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft crashed off the coast of Australia during a training mission.
In July, a KC-130T crashed in Mississippi after a transport mission, resulting in the death of 15 Marines and one Navy corpsman.
Harrison told USNI News that the Marines will study completed investigations and previous mishaps in order to “ensure all air wing Marines and sailors are informed of incidents happening across the enterprise and ensure they don’t happen again.”
On Friday, Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said that the Marines’ decision to ground all aircraft is
“further, indisputable evidence that America’s military is in a readiness crisis, and that the crisis is costing lives.” “Washington has asked our military to do too much with too little for too long,” Thornberry said, according to the Marine Times. “As threats continue to grow, Congress must act as soon as possible to provide our military with all of the resources they need to repair what can be fixed and replace what cannot be repaired.”
The last time the Marine Corps ordered a 24-hour operational pause was in August 2016, after three F/A-18 Hornets with Marine pilots crashed in the span of two months. Two of those crashes were fatal.
Okinawa gov't sues Japan over US Marines base
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efS3fsstWRM (6:21 min.)
Published on Jul 26, 2017 - The Japanese prefecture of Okinawa filed a new lawsuit against the government demanding a halt to construction work for the relocation of the US Futenma base, local media report. The relocation has been the target of protests among locals. Steve Rabson, professor of East Asian Studies at Brown University, joins RT America's Anya Parampil to talk about it.
On Guam, Resistance Grows to U.S. Military Presence as N. Korea Threatens Missiles Off Island Coast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Pd8nh3S9Zw (24:46 min.)
The front page of Guam’s Pacific Daily News reads "14 Minutes!" That’s how long it would take missiles fired from North Korea to reach the U.S. territory in the western Pacific if there is an escalation of the threat of nuclear war between the U.S. and North Korea. On Thursday, Trump again threatened North Korea, saying if it were to carry out an attack on Guam, the U.S. would retaliate with military action. The Pentagon controls about a third of all the land on Guam, which is home to 163,000 people and a sprawling complex of U.S. military bases, including the Air Force base where many of the United States’ B-2 bombers take off from before flying over the Korean Peninsula. For decades, residents of Guam have resisted the militarization and colonization of their homeland by the United States, which has now put them in the crosshairs of a possible nuclear war between the U.S. and North Korea. We go to Guam to speak with LisaLinda Natividad, president of the Guahan Coalition for Peace and Justice and a member of the Guam Commission on Decolonization, and with David Vine, author of "Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World."
There is ample evidence that American diplomats in various countries are leading the actions of the local opposition, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at the forum "Territory of Meanings."
Lavrov: the US stirs the broth, then seasons it with whatever they deem necessary
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/08/lavrov-us-stirs-broth-then-seasons-it.html
"Anywhere, in any country - in Eastern Europe, in Central Europe - the US embassy literally runs the processes, including the actions of the opposition," he said.
According to the minister, there are many Russians working at the US Embassy in Moscow. "According to the Vienna Convention, if you receive personnel in a country where you have an embassy, this personnel can only be technical - drivers, typists, stenographers." They have no right to engage in diplomatic activities, including political aspects," the Foreign Minister explained.
Nevertheless, he stressed, the Russian side often identified cases when employees of the US embassy from among those hired in Russia traveled to regions, conducted population surveys - for example, on the attitude towards a governor or the federal center.
"In such situations, we simply politely ask our American colleagues to break off official relations with these people. Everything is allowable for them, in the first place and second, they have it in their blood, " Lavrov said.
He noted that not a single "color revolution" made a better life for people in the countries where they occurred, both in the territory of the former USSR and in other parts of the world. "I think that the experience of the last decade, 15 years, shows that the peoples themselves are beginning to understand this more and more" the minister explained.
"The Americans have such a philosophy: it is necessary to create tension, showing that they are working with the opposition." This is a miniature theory of controlled chaos - the more it bubbles, the more it is more convenient for them to look at this broth and season it with what they consider necessary, " Lavrov said.
The forum participants asked the minister whether to wait for US intervention in the presidential elections in Russia in 2018.
"I hope that after all the unfounded accusations in our address, and not a single fact was presented during those nine or ten months that Washington has been saying about our interference in these elections, the very sharpness of this topic for the American establishment will make them think again", - concluded Lavrov.
Around 200,000 US troops are stationed in 177 countries throughout the world. The forces use several hundred bases, more than 1,000 if the figure includes overseas warehouse and installations. The US may need more soon, with its presence and involvement in armed conflicts on the rise.
US Military Presence Overseas Mushrooming: Here, There and Everywhere
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/08/09/us-military-presence-overseas-mushrooming-here-there-and-everywhere.html
It was reported on August 7 that the Pentagon plans to conduct airstrikes on Islamic State (IS) in the Philippines. This move will be part of the effort to rout IS militants who occupied Marawi, a city in the south of the Philippines, in May, prompting President Rodrigo Duterte to declare martial law in the entire southern region of Mindanao and ask the US for help. In June, the Joint Special Operations Task Force Trident joined the battle.
Just three days before that (on August 4), it was reported by the Pentagon that a Special Operations Forces (SOF) team was deployed to Yemen to support the ongoing United Arab Emirates (UAE) operation against the Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) terror group. The amphibious assault ship Bataan with several hundred Marines aboard is also operating in the region. Close-air support missions in the current offensive against AQAP are not ruled out.
On August 7, the US was also reported to be sending dozens more Marines to Helmand Province in southwestern Afghanistan. Army Gen. John Nicholson as the US commander in that country has been lobbying for 3,000 to 5,000 troops in addition to the 8,400 US service members already on the ground.
In June, the US increased the size of its special operations advisory force embedded with the Syrian Democratic Forces as the group prepared its invasion of Raqqa, Syria. Around 1,000 US service members are believed to be operating there.
The SOF play a special role to implement the «here, there and everywhere» policy. In 2016, the US SOF teams conducted missions in 138 countries - roughly 70 percent of the nations on the planet. The Special Operations Command is tasked with carrying out 12 core missions. Last year, US SOF were deployed to 32 African nations, about 60 percent of the countries on the continent. Navy SEALs, Green Berets, and other special operators are now conducting nearly 100 missions across 20 African countries at any given time. They are deployed in Libya - the country, which has its future uncertain after the 2011 US-led NATO involvement.
The US war footprint grows in the Middle East with no endgame in sight. In his remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)
Donald Trump said that the last 15 years of US military action in the Middle East had been an almost incomprehensible waste of money – six trillion dollars – and that after all that US war and meddling the region was actually in a worse shape than before the operations were launched. So, the policy was wrong, the president understands that and…keeps on doing the very same thing on a larger scale!
The presence in Europe is on the rise.
Troops are being deployed to countries they had no presence in before, such as Norway and Estonia. It’s not forces only but also the costly logistics infrastructure. The military wants more large-scale exercises in Europe to further boost the presence and expand infrastructure there. During his recent foreign trip, Vice President Mike Pence said the US Air Force would deploy twice as many jets during the Russian exercise Zapad-2017 to be held in September.
The US military is calling for even greater presence in Europe. Air Force Brigadier General John Healy, the director of US exercises in Europe, says he wants one comprehensive training maneuver would be crucial in testing NATO's preparedness for a global showdown with Russia. As he put it, «What we're eventually going toward is a globally integrated exercise program so that we (are) ... all working off the same sheet of music in one combined global exercise». The military leader believes the exercise should encompass all domains of war – land, sea, air, space and cyber and involve all nine US combatant commands.
Under President Trump, drone strikes worldwide grew 432 percent as of mid-March. Civilian death toll is significant in Iraq and Syria as a result of US bombardment.
A war with Iran appears to be imminent. An attack against North Korea is on the cards.
There is a plan to spend $8 billion on bulking up the US presence in the Asia-Pacific region over the next five years by upgrading military infrastructure, conducting additional exercises and deploying more forces and ships.
All these facts make one recall the events that took place just a few months ago. President Trump said he would avoid interventions in foreign conflicts. Instead of investing in wars, he would spend money to build up America's aging roads, bridges and airports. But there was a loophole. He promised to stay away from all other conflicts except Islamic State militancy.
Everybody thought he meant only airstrikes in the Middle East. Now it looks like the president meant the other regions as well. The Islamic State is present in Afghanistan and Africa. The IS terrorists have recently staged a terrorist act in Iran. They take responsibility for terrorist attacks in Europe. Jihadists operate in Russia and Central Asia. Their presence is menacing in the Asia-Pacific region. They are almost everywhere to serve as a pretext for US invasions or war preparations in almost any corner of the globe.
The United States in actually one way or another involved in all hot spots on the world map. No doubt, it will expand the involvement in the Philippines, Somalia, Afghanistan, Yemen, and boost the naval and air force presence in the Asia Pacific to oppose China – a move not related to the IS by any stretch of imagination as well as the beefing up of forces in Europe.
So, it’s Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa! It feels like the United States is always at war or preparing for a war somewhere. Yemen on August 4, the Philippines on August 7, perhaps some other place a few days later, you never know what to expect. It’s like the «perpetual war for perpetual peace» described by Charles Beard.
No matter how high the military expenditure is, the US military is doomed to be stretched thin until the policy is not changed. One cannot square the circle or embrace the boundless. The nation has a huge national debt. If the enemy is the Islamic State than the intelligence and military efforts should be concentrated on the mission to strike the group, not a number of tall orders to be accomplished by and large at the very same time.
With one mission accomplished, the US could review the priorities. The thing is - it will never be accomplished because the IS is not only militants, but rather the ideology that drives them. This evil cannot be defeated by the people in uniform alone. But that’s a different story to talk about in another article. Anyway, stretching the resources thin is not an effective policy. The United States will be following two hares catching neither instead of setting the priorities straight and focusing on what is the primary mission.
