US warns of Russia, China military threat amid growing chaos - http://news.yahoo.com/us-warns-russia-china-military-threat-amid-growing-222850933.html
America's new military strategy singles out states like China and Russia as aggressive and threatening to US security interests, while warning of growing technological challenges and worsening global stability.
A somber report released Wednesday by General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warns of a "low but growing" probability of the United States fighting a war with a major power, with "immense" consequences.
Russia has "repeatedly demonstrated that it does not respect the sovereignty of its neighbors and it is willing to use force to achieve its goals," the 2015 National Military Strategy says.
"Russia's military actions are undermining regional security directly and through proxy forces."
It points to Russian troop presence in the Ukraine conflict, though Moscow denies it has deployed its military in eastern Ukraine to bolster a separatist insurgency.
And the report expresses concern about states developing advanced technological capabilities that are causing the US military to lose its edge in that field.
"When applied to military systems, this diffusion of technology is challenging competitive advantages long held by the United States such as early warning and precision strike," the paper says.
In addition to China and Russia, the paper also includes Iran and North Korea -- highlighting their nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities -- in a list of countries that pose "serious security concerns" to America and its allies.
"Since the last national military strategy was published four years ago, global disorder has trended upward while some of our comparative advantages have begun to erode," Dempsey told reporters.
The 2011 report spoke little of Russia.
"China's actions are adding tension to the Asia-Pacific region," the document states, in reference to China's land reclamation efforts to build islands in the contested South China Sea to boost its military and civilian presence.
America's enormous military has an annual budget of about $600 billion, dwarfing that of any other nation.
And faced with non-state adversaries like the self-proclaimed Islamic State group that has seized significant portions of Iraq and Syria, Dempsey warned of long and complex fights ahead.
"Future conflicts will come more rapidly, last longer, and take place on a much more technically challenging battlefield," he wrote in the foreword to the report.
Violent extremist groups "pose an immediate threat to trans regional security by coupling readily available technologies with extremist ideologies," the report states.
Turkey and Jordan said preparing buffer zones inside Syria - Israeli air support mooted. Putin issues warning - http://www.debka.com/article/24707/Turkey-and-Jordan-said-preparing-buffer-zones-inside-Syria-Israeli-air-support-mooted-Putin-issues-warning-
The Turkish and Jordanian armies were reported on June 30 to be getting ready to cross into Syria for the first time since war engulfed that country in 2011, and set up security buffer zones. Both are impelled to fight ISIS, oppose the Assad regime and anxious to stem the flow of refugees, but there are also differences in their objectives and it is not clear if they are coordinated.
Turkey has prepared 18,000 troops to carve out a buffer zone in northern Syria and use its air force to impose a no-fly zone against Syrian flights. Middle East sources report that the Jordanian army is also on the ready to cross into southern Syria. Jordan and Israel are reported to be planning joint air cover and the creation of a parallel no-fly zone in the south.
These preparations prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin to pledge his support for the Assad regime .On Monday, June 29, Putin summoned Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem to his Kremlin office from a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to tell him that Russia's "policy to support Syria, the Syrian leadership and the Syrian people remains unchanged."
Putin has repeatedly warned Western governments against military intervention in the Syrian war or any attempt to oust Bashar Assad, warning that if foreign troops go into Syria, Moscow will respond in kind.
The Russians have not spelled out what action is contemplated, but they have options: they maintain naval and marine forces in the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions able to reach Syria at short notice. South Russian air force bases are also close enough to interfere with no-fly zones being setup over Syria.
Possible outside military intervention in Syria was the dominant topic in the phone call the Russian president put through to President Barack Obama on June 26. The communiqués in Moscow and Washington both referred to the "dangerous situation" in Syria. The two presidents also discussed the prospects of the nuclear accord shaping up with Iran, and the two issues may have been linked. The White House later stated that President Obama had stressed the need for the world powers to hold to a united stand in the negotiations with Iran.
Sources in Ankara claim that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has already given Turkish units their orders to go into Syria, although this is not confirmed. Others use the term "Western intervention" - suggesting that US and NATO are involved in the Turkish initiative. This may refer to US Air Force squadrons based in southern Turkey possibly providing air cover.
Western and Middle East sources report that the Jordanian plan entails a joint operation with Syrian rebel forces to carve out a security zone in southern Syria running from Jabal Druze and Suwayda in the east running west through the town of Deraa and up to the intersection of the Jordanian-Syrian-Israeli borders.
Fierce fighting has been raging in this part of Syria in recent days as the rebels battle Syrian-Hezbollah forces in an attempt to push them out and capture southern Syria. So far they have not made it.
The never-ending refugee problem from Syria is a major headache for the two governments. Turkey hosts some two million refugees and Jordan more than a million and a half. Stemming this flow is not the least of the goals of their buffer zone plans.
http://www.debka.com/article/24710/Israeli-border-troops-US-Mid-East-forces-on-alert-after-massive-ISIS-assault-on-Egyptian-forces-in-Sinai
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant moved ominously close to Israel's borders Wednesday, July 1 - not as predicted in the north, but in the south, from the Sinai Peninsula. There, ISIS followed up on its Ramadan terror outrages in France, Tunisia, Kuwait and Kobani, with a massive assault on Egyptian forces in the northern Sinai region of Sheikh Zuwaid close to the Israeli and Gaza Strip borders.
Not just a terrorist attack, ISIS launched a full-scale military assault, starting with mortar fire and suicide bombings against five Egyptian military checkpoints.
Using a tactic similar to that employed in the capture of the Iraqi town of Ramadi last month, ISIS gunmen followed this initial assault by riding in on minivans, backed by heavy mortar fire, to storm the positions held by stunned Egyptian troops. Altogether some 20 Egyptian army positions were attacked in and around Sheikh Zuwaid.
Egyptian troop reinforcements setting out from El Arish to the northeast to aid the beleaguered force, went up on mine and bomb traps secretly planted around their camps and police stations. Egyptian Apache assault helicopters striking the ISIS force themselves faced ground fire from shoulder-borne anti-air missiles.
Egyptian forces are reported to have sustained heavy casualties, at least 64 dead and many more wounded. The Islamists are additionally said to have taken Egyptian prisoners as hostages.
As the fighting grew fierce during Wednesday, Israel to shut its border crossings with Egypt and the Gaza Strip, and sent reinforcements south in case the jihadis launched an attack on Israel from northern Sinai.
Our military sources also report that US Middle East forces located in Jordan and at Sharm el-Sheikh are on the ready in case the Islamic State decides to attack the US officers and men at the Multinational Force facility in Sinai, which is located near the Sheikh Zuwaid battlefield.
The ISIS Sinai offensive is part and parcel of the reign of terror launched last Friday by Yassin Sahli when he beheaded his French boss, and Seifeddine Rezgui, who murdered 39 holidaymakers on a Tunisian beach. Standing ready for the Islamist offensive in Sinai were the jihadis of the Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, which recently declared Sinai a province of the Islamic State and took an oath of allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
ISIS draws on two additional major sources for its fighting manpower: the infrastructure it established in turbulent Libya for training and arming jihadis to cross the Egyptian border into Sinai; and the fatal attraction its radicalizing ideology holds for young Muslims who are taught that the brutal murder of Islam's foes is a cleansing and purifying act.
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