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EU approves sending border security advisers to Libya

European Union governments approved a mission on Wednesday to help Libya improve its border security in response to concerns that Islamist militants and weapons move freely across the North African country’s frontier.

The 110-member EU civilian team, expected to start deploying in Libya next month, will advise and train Libyan officials on how to strengthen the security of the country’s land, sea and air borders, an EU statement said. The EU team, being sent at Libya’s request, will have a budget of 30 million euros ($39 million) for its first year and be based in Tripoli.

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Israel fears war of attrition in Golan

Recent incidents in the Golan Heights continue to cast a shadow on the attitudes of Israeli leaders amid reports that Israel plans to carry out new strikes in Syria. These future attacks would be in fulfillment of Israel’s declared policy of preventing strategic weapons from being transferred through Syria to Hizbullah.

The Israeli leadership is trying to predict Syria’s reaction to any upcoming strikes, though Israeli circles purport that if the state were to carry out any attack, it would certainly be met with a Syrian response. Press reports pointed out that this comes in the context of the current tensions in the occupied Golan Heights, after the Syrian army opened fire at an Israeli patrol in the area.

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Syrian Rebels in Trouble: BND, German Intelligence Sees Assad Regaining Hold

Not even a year ago, German intelligence predicted Syrian autocrat Bashar Assad’s regime would soon collapse. Now, the agency instead believes the rebels are in trouble. Government troops are set to make significant advances, it predicts.

Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), has fundamentally changed its view of the ongoing civil war in Syria. SPIEGEL ONLINE has learned that the BND now believes the Syrian military of autocrat Bashar Assad is more stable than it has been in a long time and is capable of undertaking successful operations against rebel units at will.

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India to use geo-stationery satellites for missile defence

India has launched an ambitious programme to use its array of geo-stationary satellites (G-sats) to monitor missile activities in an area of 6,000 km. With this, the country’s constellation of G-sats will become the first line of defence in its anti-missile shield. This programme is independent of the observation grid installed by defence and intelligence agencies. The advantage of using geo-stationary satellites is their fixed position at a height of 36,000 km and synchronised with the earth’s movement.

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Libya’s Vast Borders Still a No-Man’s Land for Most

On the outskirts of Ubari, a remote outpost in Libya’s southwest near the Algerian border, armed militia from the Tebu tribe speed across the desert in Toyota trucks towards the sprawling Sharara oil fields.

They, along fighters from the town of Zintan further north, are spearheading efforts – under the auspices of Libya’s defence ministry – to secure the oil installation’s vast perimeter from sabotage.

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Israeli sensors search for the S-300 in Syria

Israel may act to stop any attempt to transfer Russian-made S-300 surface-to-air missiles from Syria to Lebanon. Such a scenario is possible if the Assad regime in Syria feels it is losing control of the country in a future phase of its civil war.

According to reliable sources, at least one shipment of Russian-made S-300 missiles has been transferred to Syria. Israeli sources say this act is a “game-changer” – especially as Syria is the middle of a bloody civil war. Israeli sources said the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) may have to act on “developing” circumstances in Syria.

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Russia Ready to Develop Long-Range Air Defense System with Turkey

Russia is ready to develop jointly with Turkey a long-range air defense complex based on S-300 surface-to-air missile systems, state arms seller Rosoboronexport head Sergei Ladygin said on Sunday.

Turkey launched a tender for the purchase of long-range air defense systems long ago but no winner has been announced to this day. “Russia is ready to offer as part of the tender a joint Russian-Turkish product based on the Antey-2500 system [the export version of the S-300 system]. For example, to mount the air defense system on the Turkish chassis,” Ladygin said at the weapons exhibition in the Peruvian capital of Lima.

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Benghazi Gate Fallout: US preparing for a ground assault on Libya

“CNN” quoted security sources that said the US developed several plans, including military action against the attackers on the U.S. consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi in September last year.

The sources, who asked not to be identified, said U.S. forces made ​​plans aimed at the arrest of the attackers on the U.S. consulate, through a variety of actions, including the transfer of U.S. ground forces into Libya to perform the operation.

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EU to step up security involvement in Somalia

The European Union is to move military training of Somali soldiers from Uganda to Mogadishu in a show of confidence in Somalia’s growing stability after two decades of turmoil, the EU special envoy to Somalia said on Wednesday.

The success of Amisom, made up mostly of Ugandan, Burundian and Kenyan soldiers, has encouraged Western countries to look beyond the scars left by the deaths of U.S. and U.N. soldiers during Somalia’s violent disintegration into civil war in the early 1990s, and increase their engagement. The EU’s training mission, separate from Amisom, has trained some 3,000 Somali soldiers and officers in Uganda since 2010.

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Master Of All Remotes: (ONR) has developed a remote controller for military ground, air and undersea unmanned systems

This Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD)-prescribed data model is a piece of software that enabled development of the Common Control System, which is comprised of many different common control services. TheUnmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) Control Segment (UCS) software can be added to any unmanned system to make it able to communicate and work with any other. It will run on any type of platform or hardware, and it can overlay existing systems running on propriety software to make them work with any others.

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Japan PM warns of possible military response to Chinese subs

Hawkish Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tuesday Tokyo could mount a military response if foreign submarines enter its territorial waters while underwater, as Japan and China continue to squabble over islands.

Abe’s comment came after Japan’s Defence Ministry said a submerged vessel was spotted in the contiguous waters — a 12 nautical mile strip outside territorial waters — near one of Japan’s Okinawa islands, from late Sunday to early Monday.“These are serious acts. If (submarines) enter our territorial waters while underwater, we would have to implement maritime security action,” Abe told parliament Tuesday.

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‘India preparing for a possible two-front war with Pak, China’

India continues to view Pakistan as the “real threat” even though it is adjusting its military strategy to include the possibility of a limited two-front war with both Pakistan and China, the first Blue Book on India published by a Chinese think tank said.

Pakistan is India’s main “real threat” to maintain a high degree of vigilance and preparedness, the summary of the Blue Book released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, (CASS) said. The report says Indian military deployment on land is mainly fixated against Pakistan but in recent times, it is also being adjusted for both China and Pakistan.

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Azerbaijan Starts Military Exercises Near Nagorno-Karabakh

Azerbaijan has started military exercises near its mainly Armenian-populated breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The Defense Ministry announced on May 14 that Defense Minister Safar Abiyev was personally leading the maneuvers.

Azerbaijan’s land and air forces are taking part in the exercises, which are expected to last until the end of the week. Last week, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said publicly that his country wanted to restore its territorial integrity and resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh issue in accordance with international law.

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Syria threatens to enter occupied Golan Heights after Israeli airstrike

The Syrian government has warned Israel that it would enter the occupied Golan Heights “whenever it wants because it’s a Syrian land,” a warning that came a week after the latest Israeli airstrike against military positions in the capital Damascus.

Israeli officials have confirmed May 4, 2013, that the country’s air force carried out a strike against Syria and say it targeted a shipment of advanced missiles. The comments were made by Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi on Sunday, May 12, 2013, during which he said that the recent Israeli airstrike against Syria had violated the pertaining international accords.

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Japanese Defense Plan: Go Nuclear

Japan is preparing to start up a massive nuclear-fuel reprocessing plant over the objections of the Obama administration, which fears the move may stoke a broader race for nuclear technologies and even weapons in North Asia and the Middle East.

The Rokkasho reprocessing facility, based in Japan’s northern Aomori prefecture, is capable of producing nine tons of weapons-usable plutonium annually, said Japanese officials and nuclear-industry experts, enough to build as many as 2,000 bombs, although Japanese officials say their program is civilian.

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Russia pursues hypersonic weapon research

Russia is developing a hypersonic weapon program. It involves more than 60 companies and is scheduled for completion this summer. Launched in the former USSR, hypersonic weapon research was resumed in post-Soviet Russia in 2009 under the umbrella of the state-owned Tactical Missiles Corporation.

Hypersonic missiles can travel at a speed surpassing that of sound (1,200 km/h) by ten or more times and are capable of penetrating any missile defense, says Alexander Khramchikhin, deputy head of the Institute for Political and Military Analysis in Moscow.

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Iran to train Sudanese naval force

The Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari voiced Iran’s enthusiasm for stronger naval cooperation with Sudan and announced that his forces are prepared to train Sudanese naval forces.

Sudanese naval officials wave as the Iranian Navy helicopter-carrier Kharg docks at Port Sudan in October 2012 (photo Press TV)
The Iranian military official made these statements on Thursday after a meeting with the commander of Sudanese Navy, General Dalil al-Daw Mohamed Fadal-Allah who is on a visit to Teheran.

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Pushing Turkey Out of Med Energy: Cyprus-Greece agree to act in concert on defence matters

The Cyprus issue, energy security and the exploitation of hydrocarbon reserves in Cyprus’ Exclusive Economic Zone were examined during a meeting in Athens between the Defence Ministers of Cyprus and Greece, Fotis Fotiou and Panos Panagiotopoulos, respectively.

Fotiou also discussed with Panagiotopoulos the situation in the wider south-eastern Mediterranean region and Turkish threats against Cyprus with regard to oil exploration.

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India-China pullback: what happened behind the scenes

However, NDTV has learnt from sources that the stand-off was resolved partly due to the halting of construction of bunkers by Indian Army in the Chumar sector of southern Ladakh, which borders Himachal Pradesh.

The Indian Army was reportedly building seven bunkers in Chumar. The general area of Chumar is disputed and claimed by both sides. According to existing agreements, neither side is allowed to construct any permanent structure, more so if they are either offensive or defensive in nature. The assurance that has been reportedly given to China is that the constructions of the bunkers will be stopped for the time being.

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Turkish Armed Forces staging drills near Syrian border

The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) is set to stage a 10-day long military drills in the southern province of Adana. Adana is neighbor to Hatay, a province bordering on Syria, Hurriyet Daily News reports.

The Yıldırım-2013 Mobilization Exercise will begin Monday, May 6 and end on May 15, according to an announcement posted on the official website of the Turkish General Staff. The exercise will test the army’s mobilization system and the coordination between public institutions and the armed forces in case of any mobilization, the statement said.

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Fighting Renews Along Afghan-Pakistani Border

Fresh clashes broke out Monday between troops on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, where soldiers from both countries exchanged gunfire last week.

Afghan officials said the fight broke out after Pakistani troops returned to the site of a gate on land that both sides claim along the porous border. It is not clear whether there were any casualties in Monday’s fighting. Last week, crossfire on the border killed one Afghan border guard and wounded two Pakistani security personnel.

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Venezuela to tap military to fight crime

Venezuela’s top security official announced Sunday the government of President Nicolas Maduro will use the military to fight rampant violent crime, raising concerns among activists who warned the initiative could lead to human rights violations.

Justice Minister Miguel Rodriguez said personnel from the army, navy and air force will join National Guard troops as part of a forthcoming anti-crime initiative. Rodriguez did not provide details of the plan during an interview broadcast on state television, but he said tapping the military would give the government “potential that we can use to quickly reduce the crime rate.”

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Germany’s Bold New Counterinsurgency Ideas

German-Foreign-Policy.com reports that Germany’s Federal Ministry of Defense has received the results of a study it commissioned seeking advice on counterinsurgency efforts in the wake of U.S. military drawdown in the Northern Hemisphere.

Prepared by researchers at the University of Kiel, “the counterinsurgency study calls inter alia for the stricter centralization of command authority and a drastic enhancement of the espionage apparatus” (May 2; translation ours). The report reveals a startlingly Teutonic aggression in the language used.

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Fear of new uncertainty hangs over Pakistani elections as military plots

After five years of relatively stable civilian rule, Pakistan seems ready to move ahead with another democratically elected government. But how will that administration behave at home and abroad?

Many longtime observers of Pakistani politics think that the new administration is most likely to be a coalition government of conservative political parties that enjoy the full support of the country’s all-powerful military establishment.

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NATO, The Existential Question

It is a profound problem, which may evolve into a true existential crisis. It is prompted by a question that organizations must sometimes confront: “What purpose do we serve?”

This is the question that is starting to be asked at the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Meetings in Brussels without any real agenda, that lead to summits without decisions, the organization gets by actively trying to “redefine” itself. In reality, the end of the organization’s mission in Afghanistan in 2014, and its economic uncertainty due to the crisis that its European members are facing, puts it in a very difficult situation.

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Iran ready to ‘train’ Syria army, says commander

Iran is ready to help “train” the Syrian army if Damascus seeks such assistance, the commander of the Islamic republic’s army ground forces, General Ahmad Reza Pourdastan, was quoted as saying on Sunday.

“As a Muslim nation, we back Syria, and if there is need for training we will provide them with the training, but won’t have any active involvement in the operations,” he said in remarks reported by the official IRNA news agency.

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Introducing ‘the arc’, Defence’s new strategic focus

Military strategists love a neat metaphor and today’s defence white paper from the Gillard government has given us a new one to bandy about.

The US had its “pivot” into the region. The white paper is asking us to envisage what it’s calling a “new Indo-Pacific strategic arc” stretching from India, through south-east Asia and north-east Asia, as our area of key strategic interest. In essence, this means more emphasis on looking west and northwest towards the Indian Ocean as well as to the north and north-east – not a revolution, but an evolution of what has been going on quietly inside defence circles for some years.

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Clinton: NATO risks sliding into “military irrelevance”

A NATO alliance where member nations are hamstrung by political and economic difficulties may be a militarily weakened one, former Secy. of State Hillary Clinton warned Wednesday night.

“NATO is turning into a two-tiered alliance with shrinking percentage of members willing – and able – to pay the price and bear the burdens of common defense,” Clinton said. “Even in these difficult economic times, we cannot afford to let the greatest alliance in history slide into military irrelevance.” Clinton was speaking at an annual Atlantic Council awards dinner in Washington where both she and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen were honored with Distinguished Leadership awards.

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Mission impossible? Africom goes on a media charm offensive

Africom has a presence in strategic points on the continent – Somalia, Djibouti, Liberia, Guinea, Uganda and Kenya – with the aim of building and sustaining democracy on the continent, the commanders assure us.

Back home, though, nobody seems to be buying what Africom is selling. If the South African government had a choice, US troops would not be camping anywhere in Africa. “We are opposed to militarisation of African politics through the establishment of military bases in Africa as part of the US’s Africom initiative,” reads an ANC paper presented by its international relations subcommittee at last December’s Mangaung congress.

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Myanmar morphs to US-China proxy battlefield

A new reality is emerging amid all the hype about Myanmar’s democratization process and moves to liberalize its political landscape. Myanmar’s drift away from a tight relationship with China towards closer links with the West is signaling the emergence of a new focal point of confrontation in Asia, one where the interests of Washington and Beijing are beginning to collide.

Rather than being on a path to democracy, Myanmar may find itself instead in the middle of a dangerous and potentially volatile superpower rivalry. That means the traditionally powerful military may not be in the mood to give up its dominant role in politics and society any time soon.

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Tunisia forces clash with 50 armed militants

Tunisian troops clashed yesterday with a group of around 50 armed militants in the remote Mount Chaambi border region, a security source at the scene said. An AFP journalist nearby reported hearing an exchange of gunfire in the area, which is close to Tunisia’s border with Algeria. The group is commanded by an Algerian and two Tunisians originally from the regional capital Kasserine, the source said. Tunisian forces have been conducting search operations in the mountainous region since Monday, targeting a group of “terrorists,” the authorities have said, while refusing to give further details because the operations were ongoing.

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Japan PM’s ‘stealth’ constitution plan raises civil rights fears

Shinzo Abe makes no secret of wanting to revise Japan’s constitution, he is seeking to lower the hurdle for revising the constitution as a prelude to an historic change to its pacifist Article 9 – which, if strictly read, bans any military. That would be a symbolic shift, loosening restrictions on the military’s overseas activities, but would have limited impact on defence as the clause has already been stretched to allow Tokyo to build up armed forces that are now bigger than Britain’s. However, sweeping changes proposed by Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in a draft constitution would strike at the heart of the charter with an assault on basic civil rights.

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Syria, North Korea, China & Beyond: Does Army’s Future Lie In ‘Messy Middle’?

The future of ground forces, the study argues, lies somewhere in the “messy middle,” between long-range, high-tech air- and cyber-strikes against a hostile nation-state — the “AirSea Battle” vision of the Navy and Air Force — and low-profile, low-cost Special Operations and drone raids against scattered terrorists. The study, entitled Beyond the Last War, lays out a score of scenarios, half in the Pacific and half in the Middle East, where the problem will be too big for Special Ops alone but too deeply dug in to excise surgically from afar.

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U.S. to Deploy State of the Art Weapons in Japan

The U.S. and Japan have agreed to deploy state-of-the-art strategic weapons in Japan in a bid to build an early warning system against North Korean missiles. “Today, we made progress on plans to deploy a second TPY-2 radar to Japan, which will help protect both of our nations from the threat of North Korean ballistic missiles,” Hagel told reporters.

The TPY-2 radar will be positioned in Kyoto following one already placed at a Japanese Air Force base in Tsugaru, Aomori Prefecture in 2006. Using 2.5-3.75 cm wavelength, far shorter than other radars, the TPY-2 radar can identify ballistic missiles within a radius of 4,000 km.

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5 Weapons of Mass Destruction the U.S. Military Uses Every Day

When most of us think of weapons of mass destruction, we think of nuclear bombs, or nerve gas, or biological agents. So it was surprising to see accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev charged with using a weapon of mass destruction after he and his brother allegedly detonated a bomb made from a pressure cooker.

Heinous as the Boston bombing is, a pressure cooker does not fit the commonly used definition of a WMD. In fact, by its own definition, the U.S. government is using WMDs every day.

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China’s ruthless foreign policy is changing the world in dangerous ways

Analyzing Beijing’s foreign policy is a relatively simple exercise. That’s because, unlike the United States and other Western nations, China doesn’t even pretend to operate on any other principle except naked self-interest. On one hand, China has courted Israel as a partner in developing Mediterranean gas fields — but it also has been happy to do business with Israel’s arch-enemy, Iran, and has sold weapons that ended up in Hezbollah’s arsenal. In South Asia, meanwhile, China has cynically helped Pakistan check India’s regional role, even as China’s state-controlled press has warned Pakistan that Beijing may “intervene militarily” in South Asia if Pakistani-origin jihadis continue to infiltrate Muslim areas of Western China.

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INSIGHT: Creating a ‘No Move’ Zone in Syria

This may be a template for a possible plot for “The Expendables 3” but it is a truly bad real-world military operation. Creating limited protection zones for what are now millions of potential refugees would commit the United States to unstable half-measures – and the open-ended use of force to defend them – with the risks of either a continuing civil war or an unplanned process of escalation without allied commitments or support and the reality that the people in such zones would need massive amounts of emergency relief. As Libya showed, “no fly” zones are not enough to end a civil war or halt ground movements and escalation in the use of artillery, missiles, and carefully managed atrocities by competing ground forces.

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Chinese Signaling for Conflict: A Predictive Pattern

A new report released in April by the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs at the National Defense University looks at the history of Chinese threat and retaliation signaling. It offers up a future signaling scenario involving the South China Sea that should be required reading for the US Pacific Command and the US National Security Council.

The core of the scenario is based on the proposition that China perceives closer military ties among the US, Philippines, and Vietnam as a “threatening strategic trend” as it did with the 1978 Hanoi-Moscow security treaty. China perceived the treaty as collusion to establish a “regional hegemony” over Vietnam’s neighbors.

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Energy Resources: China, India spar over Persian Gulf oil

China’s plan to build a second aircraft carrier and the Indian navy’s recent test-firing of a submarine-launched cruise missile should be ringing alarm bells in the Persian Gulf. Beijing and New Delhi are squaring off militarily in the Indian Ocean, the key energy artery from the Middle East and Africa to the Asian giants who need the oil and gas to fuel their expanding economies. At the same time, both states — but China in particular — have sharply boosted investment in Middle Eastern and African energy resources.

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North Africa Is Becoming The New Afghanistan

The cost of ignoring Africa is immense—and may be ultimately measured in American lives lost. Left unchecked, Al Qaeda affiliates in North Africa will soon be able to strike at Americans overseas and at home. Ignoring North Africa today is like ignoring Afghanistan in 1998, as Bin Laden’s minions began to plan the September 11 attacks. North Africa is becoming the “new Afghanistan”—a string of toterring and largely ungoverned nations running from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.

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NATO looks for allies to station military contingent in Central Asia

Not much time is left until 2014, when the withdrawal of NATO anti-terrorism coalition troops from Afghanistan is expected to take place; however, it still remains unknown what type of military contingent will remain in Afghanistan and Central Asia thereafter and which countries of the region will be selected by the West for this purpose.

The fact that military contingents will remain not only in Afghanistan but also in the region is doubtless and is openly stated by officials. On Tuesday, the U.S. Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia Robert Blake said the fact of the coalition’s presence in Central Asia is unequivocal, adding that it is still not decided on what other transit points and bases will be maintained in the region.

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U.S. Marine rapid response force deploying to Spain base

The first of 500 Marines have begun deploying to Spain as part of a new rapid reaction force to respond to threats against U.S. citizens, government personnel or installations in Africa. The new task force is based at Moron Air Base in southern Spain, which provides quick access especially to northern Africa, where security concerns have grown since the September 2012 attack on a U.S. government facility in Benghazi, Libya, a Pentagon official told CNN. When fully operational, the unit will be required to be airborne within six hours of receiving orders, providing the type of rapid response that the Pentagon says was not possible during the Benghazi attack. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans died during the assault at the U.S. mission and CIA annex.

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Indian Army briefs govt on military options on Chinese intrusion

With China sticking to its stand that its troops have not violated the Line of Actual Control, Army has told the Government about various military options that can be exercised to deal with the situation arising out of the intrusion in Ladakh.

The Army has given its inputs on the incursion by Chinese troops to the National Security Advisor-headed China Study Group which includes the Secretaries of the Ministries of Defence, Home and External Affairs, government sources said here. The inputs given by the force are also about various options including using military aggressively in the situation, they said.

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Belarus may sell S-300 systems to Syria

Four S-300 systems, which will be shipped to Belarus by Russia, may be re-sold to pariah countries. This is how general Valer Fralou commented for the charter97.org web-site in the shipment of air-to-surface missile systems S-30 and the deployment of a Russian aviation base in Belarus. “Any military forces based in Belarus increase the potential of the Belarusian army. But this is only from the military point of view. One should not forget that Belarus is still a part of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and we have a union state with Russia”, – the general noted.

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US looks to allies to secure Arabian Gulf

“It is our hope that the Gulf Cooperation Council, the GCC, can play an important role in the future providing security for this region,” he told an audience at the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies Research. Across the board, he said, Washington is urging allies to build local capacity. “That’s what we’re doing for the UAE and that’s what we’re doing with other countries. Yes, we give them the help they need, we give them assistance, but the fact is that they have to help provide for their security.” For months, many commentators from Riyadh to Doha to Manama have sensed and relayed this shift in US policy.

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Taiwan stages live-fire drill in contested Spratlys

Taiwan’s coastguards said Monday that Taipei had staged a live-fire drill within a hotly-contested island chain in the South China Sea, in a move that risks stoking regional tensions.

More than 2,000 rounds of ammunition were fired by garrison forces on Taiwan-administered Taiping, the largest of the Spratly Islands, Wang Chin-wang, chief of the Coast Guard Administration, told parliament. It was Taipei’s first live-fire drill in the Spratlys — claimed in whole or part by Taiwan, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei — since long-range mortars and artillery were shifted to Taiping Island in August last year.

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Indian Army matches China man-for-man on the border

As the Army’s Military Intelligence (MI) and Military Operations (MO) directorates study the Chinese troop incursion into Indian territory at Daulat Beg Oldi, below the towering Karakoram Pass in Ladakh, military analysts are also scanning a newly-released Chinese document for information that might be of help.

Indian military planners who prepare for eventualities like the current PLA incursion spiraling out of control, perhaps even into actual fighting, focus less on total numbers than on the units and formations that can quickly come into action. The White Paper fully corroborates the Army’s estimates of Chinese formations on the Sino-Indian border.

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‘Jordan opens skies for Israeli drones flying to Syria’

Jordan has opened two corridors of its airspace to Israeli Air Force drones seeking to monitor the ongoing conflict in Syria, French daily Le Figaro reported on Sunday, citing a Western military source in the Middle East.

According to the report, Jordanian King Abdullah made the decision in March during US President Barack Obama’s visit to Jordan, which came immediately after his first trip as president to Israel. Le Figaro quoted the military source as saying that the Israeli drones fly at night to avoid detection. The source added that “the Syrians have Russian air defense assets, but Israeli aircraft are difficult to detect and therefore virtually immune to anti-aircraft measures.”

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Regional Tensions Force Philippine Leaders To Consider Nuclear Weapons

Parallel moves by Washington and Beijing appear to have persuaded Pyongyang not to carry out its nuclear threat against South Korea, the United States and Japan. But unless the threat has been completely neutralized, President B. S. Aquino III may yet succeed in making the Philippines a potential target for North Korea or China.

While we had earlier feared that a North Korean missile could hit the Philippines purely by accident or mistake, in the future Pyongyang or even China could aim its missile directly at the Philippines, should it finally host American military bases all over again.

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The Dragon Has Landed: What does the Chinese incursion into Kashmir mean?

On 15 April, 2013, several dozen soldiers of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) entered as deep as ten kilometers inside the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control in Daulat Beg in Ladakh (Jammu and Kashmir) and set up a camp there. The audacity of the Chinese operation is reflected from the fact that their ground troops were given cover and logistic help by two helicopters to enable them to set up a camp on the Indian territory. Why did the Chinese choose Daulat Beg? The Chinese have not forgotten that it was at this place where the Indians had set up its landing strip during the 1962 Sino-Indian War.

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Pentagon, NATO allies witness missile defense test in skies over Central New York

Military leaders from the Pentagon, Italy and Germany were in Central New York this week to witness a classified test of a missile defense system. As part of the test, a small plane and a simulated tactical ballistic missile were detected and tracked by the Medium Extended Air Defense System, or MEADS, its developers said today. MEADS, developed in part by Lockheed Martin with partners in Italy and Germany, was tested using radars placed at Lockheed’s test range in Cazenovia and on its campus at Electronics Park in Salina. MEADS and Lockheed Martin officials said they could not release photos or videos of the test because of the classified nature, nor could they disclose the names of the NATO officials who witnessed the demonstration.

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US warship in Singapore gives punch to Asian ‘pivot’

A United States warship designed to fight in coastal areas arrived on Thursday in Singapore for its Southeast Asian deployment, underlining President Barack Obama’s new strategic focus on Asia.

The deployment of the USS Freedom comes at a time of heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula and as China publicly flexes its naval muscle in the South China Sea, where it has competing territorial claims with some Southeast Asian states. US Navy officials said the Freedom, a littoral combat ship, sailed into Changi Naval Base at around 11 a.m. in Singapore, a long-standing US ally that assists in logistics and exercises for forces in Southeast Asia.

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Israel ‘set to hit Syria rebels over dangerous weapons’

Tension is rising on the Israel-Syria cease-fire line on the Golan Heights and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu says he’s ready to launch military operation to prevent the weakening Damascus regime’s chemical and other advanced weapons falling into Islamist hands. “We see a deterioration of the general chain of command” in the Syrian-held sector of the Golan, said Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman. But the Israelis see the main threat to them as the jihadists acquiring the regime’s well-stocked arsenals of chemical weapons and advanced systems such as Russian-made Scud-B ballistic missiles, which can carry chemical warheads, and surface-to-air missiles that would challenge Israel’s long-held air supremacy in the region.

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Experts at Abu Dhabi summit want GCC military integration

International defence experts have called on Arabian Gulf countries to establish military command systems able to exchange and share information at the click of a button. The calls were made yesterday at the C4ISR Summit (Command, Control, Communication, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) in Abu Dhabi. The GCC secretary general, Dr Abdullatif Al Zayani, told the summit that the GCC was politically in unison and called for the countries’ militaries to follow suit. “GCC countries have to be able to be integrated and interoperable to share intelligence and information and be ready to work together at a higher and more complete level,” he said.

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China deploys navy ships to patrol islands disputed with Japan

A day after asking Japan to stop encroaching its territory, Chinese military on Wednesday for the first time deployed its naval ships to patrol the islands disputed with Tokyo in the East China Sea. This is the first time in recent months China deployed its naval vessels for patrols in the islands waters replacing the marine surveillance vessels, even though some naval ships were seen in the waters earlier. A two-vessel fleet of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy patrolled the territorial waters surrounding the Diaoyu islands this morning

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Moscow Fuming Over U.S.-Georgia Military Drill

More than 350 U.S. marines and several hundred Georgian Army troops angered Moscow by holding a month-long military drill in the former Soviet republic that ended on April 5. The U.S.-Georgia war exercise, code named “Agile Spirit 2013,” prompted the Russians to stage large-scale, unscheduled drills of their own.

In a snap response to the war drills, Russia held large-scale military exercises of its own in the Black Sea, causing great alarm in Georgia. “The current drills are unscheduled, unusual and go beyond the usual location of the armed forces in the spirit of the 2011 Vienna Document on Confidence and Security-Building Measures,”

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The Enemy Industrial Complex: How to turn a world lacking in enemies into the most threatening place in the universe

Without an enemy of commensurate size and threat, so much that was done in Washington in these years might have been unattainable. The vast national security building and spending spree — stretching from the Virginia suburbs of Washington, where the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency erected its new $1.8 billion headquarters, to Bluffdale, Utah, where the National Security Agency is still constructing a $2 billion, one-million-square-foot data center for storing the world’s intercepted communications — would have been unlikely.

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Pain Rays and Robot Swarms: The Radical New War Games the DOD Plays

The technologies of interest are potential “game-changers”: biotechnologies (e.g., human enhancements), energy (e.g., lasers and superefficient batteries), materials (e.g., 3D printing), hardware (e.g., robots), and software (e.g., electromagnetic and cyberweapons). But this particular wargame was dedicated to their ethics, policy, and legal issues, helping to identify friction points as well as to test how they can be integrated better in national-security planning and military-technology development.

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A Mediterranean League?

A union of this nature, reminiscent of the so-called “phantom” and comparatively short-lived Periphery Doctrine adopted by prime minister David Ben-Gurion in 1958 but collectively revived, strengthened, and upgraded in the present context, would pool the military resources of these countries under a joint leadership to be agreed upon, and would have the potential of impeding the Turkish hegemon from acting belligerently in the region. (One can see how this rejuvenated policy would work by studying Israel’s covert military agreement with a resurgent Ethiopia and in its leveraging of its knowledge-based industries with many other countries, such as Brazil, Nigeria, China, and India.)

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UK to lead largest European military exercise, Joint Warrior

The east coast is to bear witness to one of the largest tactical military training exercises Europe has seen. More than 40 warships from the UK and its European allies, along with 30 fixed-wing aircraft and 30 helicopters, will storm the east coast in a massive training exercise starting on Friday morning.

The exercise, codenamed Joint Warrior, will kick off at 10am and will aim to put Nato’s Response Force Task Group to the test through a series of manoeuvres across the east and west coast of Scotland over the next three weeks.

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Inside China: PLA strategist reflects military’s mainstream

One of China’s most influential military strategists has made headlines by saying that a new, lethal strain of bird flu is a “U.S. bio-psychological weapon” conspiracy designed to harm China.

Senior Col. Dai Xu, an air force officer in the People’s Liberation Army, has written several best-sellers, mostly on U.S. military strategy toward China, and enjoys a national following. He is a prominent voice inside China on military strategy and national security.Though many in the West view him as an aberration, Col. Dai is a core member of China’s strategic community and his views are backed by a huge following in Chinese military circles.

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Encrypted broadcast system links IDF brass to intel

‘Castle of the Lake’ intelligence command and control system being developed to deliver military decision-makers information from every possible source.In a hypothetical yet plausible situation, a very senior IDF commander is sitting at home, when he is alerted of a developing threat over the border.

As he makes his way to IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv to meet with army brass, the commander pulls out a handheld military communications device, which sends and receives highly encrypted broadcasts.

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Israel and Cyprus to Hold Joint Military Exercise

Israel is set to send warships to the eastern Mediterranean for a joint military exercise with Cyprus, according to a report which appeared in the Cypriot Fileleftheros daily on Tuesday and which was cited by the Turkish Today’s Zaman. Cypriot Defense Minister Fotis Fotiou confirmed that the joint exercise, which will include the participation of four or five Israeli warships, is due to start on April 25, the report said. Fotiou also noted that the exercise will focus on the security of the eastern Mediterranean region and that of gas companies.

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Admiral: US War Footing on Korean Peninsula at Highest Level in 50 Years

U.S. defenses could intercept a ballistic missile launched by North Korea, the top U.S. military commander in the Pacific said Tuesday, as the relationship between the West and the communist government hit its lowest ebb since the end of the Korean War.

Adm. Samuel Locklear, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Kim Jong Un, the country’s young and still relatively untested new leader, has used the past year to consolidate his power.

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Navy Deploying Laser Weapon Prototype in Persian Gulf

The Navy is going to sea for the first time with a laser attack weapon that has been shown in tests to disable patrol boats and blind or destroy surveillance drones. A prototype shipboard laser will be deployed on a converted amphibious transport and docking ship in the Persian Gulf, where Iranian fast-attack boats have harassed American warships and where the government in Tehran is building remotely piloted aircraft carrying surveillance pods. The laser is designed to carry out a graduated scale of missions, from burning through a fast-attack boat or a drone to producing a nonlethal burst to “dazzle” an adversary’s sensors and render them useless, without causing any other physical damage.

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Air-Sea Battle endures amidst strategic review

The U.S. military’s much-discussed AirSea Battle will remain a priority in light of rising tensions with North Korea, ongoing military strategy assessments and continued budget constraints, Pentagon officials said.

“Air-Sea Battle is a set of agreed-upon ideas and actions to create the joint force needed for operations in contested and denied environments and what that force needs to be able to do. Having smaller budget authority does not change the validity of [Air-Sea Battle’s] ideas and actions for force development, although it may slow [Air-Sea Battle’s] implementation,” according to a statement from the Air-Sea Battle office.

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What North Korean intelligence listens to

A group of radio monitoring enthusiasts dutifully log all of the broadcasts on the Air Force’s High Frequency Global Communications System. The HFGCS, stood up in 1992, is a reliable, redundant worldwide communications network that allows deployed aircraft to talk with fixed and flying command and control centers. There are 13 base stations across the world, ensuring virtual global coverage with plenty of overlap. The frequencies are published openly; the broadcasts are analog (although a digital transition is coming) and in the clear because secure telephones and secure HF radio networks don’t work well together yet.

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NSA to close secretive listening post in Yakima

The Yakima facility has been mentioned in several books on national security but otherwise hasn’t attracted widespread attention. James Bamford, whose groundbreaking 1982 book about the NSA, “The Puzzle Palace,” has said the Yakima facility has played a major role for decades in Echelon, the global surveillance network operated by the NSA and its counterparts in the British Commonwealth: Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The system has been reported to be capable of intercepting satellite communications traffic, such as emails and calls, from cellphones.

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Polska Times: Belarus to rehearse nuclear attack on Warsaw

The West is becoming more and more alarmed about Zapad 2013 war games. NATO troops will carry out military exercises in Poland practising defence of Estonia, while Belarus and Russia will repel an imaginary attack from Poland: They plan to rehearse a pre-emptive nuclear strike on Warsaw, Polska Times reports. Tension between Russia and NATO has been growing since the beginning of the year. The Alliance prepares for Steadfast Jazz 2013 military exercises that will take place in Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, while Belarus and Russia will carry out Zapad 2013 war games.

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Algeria: A giant afraid of its shadow

“In Algeria, power likes to hide,” says a political scientist in Algiers. “The military and security forces have come to the conviction that they have to work in a hidden way, that they have to practise power but never in the light, and they try to resolve all domestic and international problems using secret services rather than going through public institutions.” The intellectuals’ story of the origins of the old men who run Algeria goes some way towards explaining the intensity with which the country’s murky elite remain absorbed in their own power games.

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The messages of Russia’s military exercise in the Black Sea

It is probable to say that the respective exercise has an interregional message considering the agreement among the Black Sea riparian countries on the relationship and the preservation of the stabilization in Black Sea. On the ground that some new developments take place specifically in Middle East and Syria crisis, it is useful to draw attention to Middle East and Mediterranean rather than Black Sea. As a reminder, Moscow made a decision to permanently possess warships in Mediterranean due to the conflicts in Syria last month, and this decision sparked a debate.

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Israel, Syrians, trade fire across ceasefire line

An Israeli tank fired into Syrian territory on Tuesday night after Syrian mortar and small-arms fire hit the Israeli-occupied sector of the Golan heights the military said. An Israeli army statement said troops “returned precise fire at the source and reported a direct hit.” In response to a query from AFP a spokeswoman said it was an Israeli tank that returned fire. She did not give further details. There were no Israeli casualties from the Syrian fire, the army said.

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Georgia says it will further monitor Russian naval exercises

The Georgian Foreign Ministry has announced that Tbilisi expresses deep concern about the unplanned and sudden exercises of the Russian military which go beyond the territory defined by the Vienna Agreement.

Speaking at a briefing on Monday, Deputy Foreign Minister David Zalkaliani said that Georgia will continue to inform the international community on Russian military exercises being held near the maritime borders of the country. The Georgian side is distressed with the fact that near its borders large-scale exercises are conducted, with the date of completion and objectives not reported.

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U.S. Wargames North Korean Regime Collapse, Invasion to Secure Nukes

In a war game focusing on the fictitious country “North Brownland,” military experts from the Army’s forward-looking research arm, the Concept Development and Learning Directorate, assessed how many U.S. troops it would take to go into a North Korea-like place to secure the weapons after a crisis erupted, and how quickly those weapons could be secured.American troops would have to enter the country by air and sea, locate nuclear material in enormous storehouses and unknown underground bunkers, and figure out how to wrest control of nuclear materials and stop reactors. The challenges, Hix said, are significant.

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Israel’s fake rocks spy on Russian naval movements

Israeli spying equipment has been found hidden in artificial rocks on an uninhabited island opposite the Syrian port of Tartus, where it was being used to monitor Russian naval movements. Three large espionage devices were discovered by fishermen on the tiny Ant Island near a naval base regarded by Moscow as an important strategic asset in the Mediterranean. According to Al-Manar, a pro-Syrian television station in neighbouring Lebanon, the “rocks” could track and film Russian warship movements and instantly transmit pictures back to Israel by satellite.

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Russia Mulls Establishing Bases in Afghanistan

“We will look into various options of creating repair bases on Afghan territory,” the head of the Defense Ministry’s department of international cooperation, Sergey Koshelev, told the press. He added that the maintenance of weapons and military hardware in Afghanistan remains a top priority, as any instability in the country would affect Russia’s own security, as well as the security of other European nations. Russian NATO envoy Aleksandr Grushko also said that Moscow was not excluding the possibility of broader cooperation with the military bloc.

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UN Authorizes Intervention Force for Congo

The U.N. Security Council authorized a new “intervention brigade” for Congo on Thursday with an unprecedented mandate to take military action against rebel groups to help bring peace to the country’s conflict-wracked east.

The resolution, which the council adopted unanimously, gives the brigade a mandate to carry out offensive operations alone or with Congolese army troops to neutralize and disarm armed groups. The brigade is unprecedented in U.N. peacekeeping because of its offensive mandate.

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North Korea puts rocket units on standby to attack US military bases

North Korea put its rocket units on standby on Friday to attack US military bases in South Korea and the Pacific, after the United States flew two nuclear-capable stealth bombers over the Korean peninsula in a rare show of force.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signed off on the order at a midnight meeting of top generals and “judged the time has come to settle accounts with the US imperialists in view of the prevailing situation”, official KCNA news agency said. Pyongyang has also cancelled an armistice agreement with the United States that ended the Korean War and cut all communications hotlines with US forces, the United Nations and South Korea.

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Canada takes its turn defending only NATO country without an army, Iceland

In mid-March, six CF-18s and more than 160 Canadian Forces personnel bunked down at a Cold War-era base just outside Reykjavik to kick off Operation Ignition, a periodic mission in which Canada takes its turn defending the island nation, which is the only NATO member without a single soldier or pilot on the payroll. Canadians will monitor radar, escort “unauthorized” aircraft out of Icelandic airspace and practice scrambling jets to “intercept and identify unknown airborne objects,” according to a statement by the Department of National Defense.

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Putin Orders Suprise Black Sea Warship Exercises

President Vladimir Putin has ordered Russia’s Black Sea fleet to begin large-scale, unscheduled naval exercises involving dozens of ships and thousands of troops. The order was reportedly presented to Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu in a sealed envelope at 4am Moscow time as Mr Putin flew back from an international summit in South Africa. President Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the exercises would involve 36 warships and up to 7,000 troops, as well as an unspecified number of aircraft.

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Israeli air ops underline Syria jitters

Israel is getting increasingly jumpy as Syrian rebels, particularly the increasingly effective Islamists, steadily throttle the beleaguered Damascus regime. Unusually heavy air force activity over Lebanon in recent days is raising suspicions Israel’s preparing for airstrikes to ensure the Jewish state’s security as Islamists advance into southern Syria close to the occupied zone in the Golan Heights.The marked increase in the number of aircraft involved, including unmanned spy drones, and their flight patterns over Hezbollah strongholds and suspected missile sites in recent days suggest Israel may be preparing for sizable offensive air operations against Hezbollah or Syria, or both.

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France May Permanently Deploy Soldiers in Mali

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has suggested the creation of a peacekeeping force in Mali that would include West African troops already operating in the country. He also said that a “parallel force” must be built to confront extremist threats.

“Given the anticipated level and nature of the residual threat, there would be a fundamental requirement for a parallel force to operate in Mali alongside the UN mission in order to conduct major combat and counter-terrorism operations,” Ban wrote in his report on Mali. “The force would operate under robust rules of engagement, with a mandate to use all necessary means to address threats to the implementation of its mandate, which would include protection of civilians,” he said.

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Israel Defence Forces planning for confrontation with Egypt

Israel Today newspaper has prepared a special report on the Arab armies in the Middle East; its title is telling; “Long Arm in the Region” is a reference to the Israel Defence Forces. It is claimed that the IDF is planning for a confrontation with Egypt. There is a new unit within the IDF which studies the armies of the Arab states through Israel’s military intelligence agency, Aman.

This agency supplies information on the power centres in the region’s armies and their plans, as well as how to exhaust their capabilities even before a direct confrontation. In the event of war with any Arab state, the new unit is ready to present a detailed plan of attack, cutting off enemy supply routes and rendering it unable to retaliate against Israeli attacks.

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‘Dagger’ brigade readies for AFRICOM missions

Some 4,000 soldiers of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, out of Fort Riley, Kan., are training for realignment to U.S. Africa Command, expected later this year. The 2nd BCT, or “Dagger” Brigade as it is known, will be the first brigade to be regionally aligned to U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM.

U.S. Pacific Command has had units regionally align to its area of responsibility with similar training at Fort Irwin earlier this year. The drawdown in Afghanistan has enabled the Army to begin regional alignments, said Lt. Gen. Keith Walker, deputy commander, Futures and director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center, Training and Doctrine Command, or TRADOC.

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Israel Mulls Buffer Zone on Border With Syria

An Israeli general has raised the possibility of creating a buffer zone in Syria, in cooperation with local forces wary of jihadist fighters, should President Bashar al-Assad be toppled.

Major-General Yair Golan said “many hundreds” of radical Islamists were fighting in Syria’s two-year-old civil war and could “take root” in Israel’s northern neighbour should Assad fall. He said the Israeli military was working on the assumption that these fighters would ultimately launch attacks against Israel, which captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war.

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Israel fires into Syria after Golan attack on troops

Israel said it fired into Syria Sunday and destroyed a machine-gun position in the Golan Heights from where shots had been fired at Israeli soldiers in a further spillover of the Syrian civil war along a tense front.

It was not immediately clear whether Israel held Syrian troops or rebels responsible for what a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said had been a deliberate attack on Israeli patrols in the occupied territory. Israeli forces “destroyed a Syrian machine gun nest that fired twice in the last 24 hours on Israeli patrols operating to safeguard the border

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Science-fiction turns real: Genetically engineering animals for war

Whether it’s rescue rat-bots or bomb-sniffing beetle drones, electronics are helping us create new beasts of burden, allowing us to conscript creatures into the modern animal workforce. These animals’ brains are being taken hostage, their nervous systems forced to cooperate with our plans. As Maharbiz wrote in an account of his research, “[W]e wanted to be sure we could deliver signals directly into the insect’s own neuromuscular circuitry, so that even if the insect attempted to do something else, we could provide a countercommand. Any insect that could ignore our commands would make for a crummy robot.”

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U.S. Stages Military Exercises In North and West Africa

Another military exercise led by the Pentagon was the Saharan Express 2013. The real purpose behind these exercises of course was revealed by Omar Wad, a spokesperson for the Senegalese Marine Forces General Command, who said “The safety of marine space is a main bet for Sahel countries because it will protect oil that passes everyday through the Atlantic Ocean. Commodities passing through the ocean, especially along the shores of countries participating in the exercise, represent 80 percent of world commodities.”

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Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt’s military: On collision course?

The possibility of armed militias and vigilante groups run by the Muslim Brotherhood and other hard-line Islamist groups has raised the spectre of a possible confrontation between such militias and the military.

Already the “power-of-attorney” drive calling on the army to replace the Muslim Brotherhood government, conducted against a backdrop of sharply escalating political tension, police strikes, rioting and angry protest demonstrations in many cities, fuel shortages, rising prices and the clear inability of the current government to cope with on-going crises have caused strains between the army and Islamist groups.

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NATO-Commissioned Report Says Killing Hackers Is Basically OK

In an attempt to make some sense of the mess, NATO (basically the Western powers-that-be) commissioned a report from a bunch of legal experts at the ‘NATO Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence’ to suggest some rules for cyber-warfare. Well, the report’s in, and the suggestions are kinda surprising.

Basically, cyber attacks which cause “physical damage, injury or death” constitute a ‘use of force’, and thus can be retaliated to with real physical weapons. Equally surprising is the classification of civilian hacktivists as legitimate targets during war.

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US sends new satellite into space to monitor missile launches

An unmanned Atlas 5 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to put a second upgraded missile-warning satellite into orbit. The 192-foot (58-meter) rocket lifted off from its seaside launch pad at 5:21 pm EDT/2121 GMT, carrying the US Air Force’s second Space Based Infrared System Geosynchronous, or Geo2, satellite. Once operational, the spacecraft will join an orbital surveillance network that continually scans the globe for telltale signs of missile launches.

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Military Strategy: Algeria and Morocco, enemies and neighbors

Cold War forces, armies of Algeria and Morocco have followed models and doctrines opposed. But their strategies have evolved considerably in recent years. Two countries, two doctrines, two worldviews. Algeria and Morocco belonged to two separate blocks. In each “camp” years of alignment – that of the East for the first and the West for the second – marked the ranks. Officers became officers and general officers, NCOs and officers have sometimes become officers. Some trained “Soviet” other “French” or “American.”

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NATO on call to engage in Syria, Europe commander says

NATO was ready to engage in Syria if its members saw the need, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe Admiral James Stavridis said.

Addressing US Senate’s Armed Services Committee, NATO commander said the North Atlantic Alliance was making contingency plans for a NATO military presence in Syria and was prepared to engage provided that such action was demanded. “We are looking at a wide range of operations, and we are prepared, if called upon, to be engaged as we were in Libya,” Stavridis said.

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U.S. commander: NATO makes plans for involvement in Syria

The top U.S. military commander in Europe said Tuesday that NATO is conducting contingency planning for possible military involvement in Syria and American forces would be prepared if called upon by the United Nations and member countries.

The Syrian civil war marked an ignominious two-year milestone this week with no sign that President Bashar Assad is close to giving up power. Adm. James Stavridis, commander of U.S. European Command, told a Senate panel that the United States is “looking at a variety of operations.” “We are prepared if called upon to be engaged,” Stavridis told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

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Strategic U.S. bombers practice nuclear strikes over Korea in show of force

A U.S. B-52 bomber will fly over the Korean peninsula today for the second time this month as part of the Pentagon’s effort to send a signal to North Korea after it threatened preemptive nuclear strikes.

“Just having the B-52 near the Korean peninsula and pass through means that the U.S. nuclear umbrella can be provided whenever necessary,” South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min Seok told reporters in Seoul, declining to disclose the flight time.

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Report: Chinese Drone ‘Swarms’ Designed to Attack American Aircraft Carriers

According to Easton, who studied more than 100 Chinese-language military technology journals, official government reports and news reports out of Taiwan, the Chinese see drones as a platform to wage war at the “highest level of conflict.” Chinese documents suggest that the country’s People’s Liberation Army “envision[s] attacking U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups with swarms of multi-mission UAVs.”

Chinese reports suggest that they plan to use the drones in the event of a conventional war. While American drones are rarely lost overseas, China envisions attacks “with initial waves of decoy drones” followed by swarms of strike drones that would often be shot down during their mission.

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Former CEO reveals Blackwater worked as ‘virtual extension of the CIA’

“Blackwater’s work with the CIA began when we provided specialized instructors and facilities that the Agency lacked,” Prince told me recently, in response to written questions. “In the years that followed, the company became a virtual extension of the CIA because we were asked time and again to carry out dangerous missions, which the Agency either could not or would not do in-house.”

A prime example of the close relationship appears to have unfolded on March 19, 2005. On that day, Prince and senior CIA officers joined King Abdullah of Jordan and his brothers on a trip to Blackwater headquarters in Moyock, North Carolina, according to lawyers for the company and former Blackwater officials.

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Japan, Sri Lanka to beef up maritime security alliance with eye on China

Japan plans to strengthen its maritime security alliance with Sri Lanka to curb China’s growing influence on countries with Indian Ocean coastlines. A joint statement on maritime security cooperation will be issued after a meeting between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa on March 14, sources said.

China, which replaced Japan as the largest aid provider to Sri Lanka in 2009, has been helping with construction of a number of port facilities in countries around India in a strategy known as the “String of Pearls.” A government source said tightening ties with Sri Lanka is “a step toward driving a wedge into the String of Pearls.”

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In Midst of Possible Conflict With South Korea, North Korean Troops Are Going AWOL

Despite repeated war threats from Pyongyang, an increasing number of North Korean soldiers have gone AWOL from their front-line combat units in recent months, sources in Seoul said Tuesday, in a possible sign of rising discontent in the rank and file suffering from grueling winter training and food shortages.

“A recent analysis revealed the number of deserters in front-line military units has increased by seven to eight times compared to the same period of the previous year,” a source said, asking for anonymity as he is not allowed to talk about military information. “Military and government officials are closely looking into the cause of the rise in desertions.”

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Trinidad: Uproar over phantom private army

Desperate to keep a 2010 election campaign to significantly reduce violent crimes and prevent murders, the administration of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has turned to a brigade of retired cops and private volunteers to form a new phantom force to ferret out gangs, secretly investigate crime and run intelligence operations for the Ministry of National Security without telling the police high command and the public.

But when some of the new Flying Squad members began to surface and speak out, National Security Minister Jack Warner and other cabinet colleagues steadfastly denied its existence, the millions channeled to the squad, its daily interface with the ministry and the payment for vehicles rented from private dealers.

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