Saudi Arabia's last best chance may be an alliance with Israel - Haroon Moghul - http://qz.com/520483/saudi-arabias-last-best-chance-may-be-an-alliance-with-israel/
Given its location, resources and religious significance, Saudi Arabia should have developed into one of the world's great powers: a Norway in the Middle East, perhaps, or a South Korea on the Arabian Peninsula. At the very least, someone at the top should've realized the good times wouldn't last-eventually the oil would run out, superpowers would move on, and the country would have to stand on its own.
Apparently not. Modern Saudi Arabia finds itself in desperate circumstances, which call for desperate measures. The kingdom's last best chance may be the one nobody saw coming: an alliance with Israel.
Decades of distrust
In 1979, the very same Soviet Union that had bankrolled Saudi Arabia's former nemeses, including Nasser's socialist Egypt, invaded Afghanistan. The world's most powerful land army was now a hop, skip, and a jump away. Saudi Arabia partnered with Pakistan, the United States, and local Afghan forces to make sure the Soviets never made it farther.
Meanwhile, earlier in 1979, the pro-Western Shah of Iran-a fellow absolute ruler of a compliant petrochemical power-was replaced by the self-declared Islamic Republic. Saudi Arabia and Iran almost immediately clashed, beginning a decades-long adversarial relationship. Making the first move, Saudi Arabia, her Gulf Cooperation Council allies, and the United States backed Saddam Hussein's brutal invasion of Iran. Iran survived, scathed and angry, but also contained.
9/11 and America's decision to topple the Taliban (which only Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates had recognized) changed this. Not only was that a failure, and horribly executed, it had two terrible side effects for the Saudis: It removed Iran's principal regional opponent and exhausted America, her principal superpower patron. More about this later.
In early 2011, a popular uprising toppled Tunisia's longtime dictator. This was vaguely ominous, but when the contagion spread to Egypt, it became downright terrifying. The largest Arab nation, mostly Sunni Muslim like Saudi Arabia, could not be allowed to become a democracy. The convulsions reached Yemen to the south, and fellow Gulf monarchy Bahrain off Saudi Arabia's eastern coast.
When the dust had settled, Saudi Arabia and her allies had managed to avoid democracy in Egypt, crushed popular hopes in Bahrain, and launched a devastating war against Yemeni rebels. The Middle East seemed to be at peace once more, while the Arab Spring in Syria meant Iran's major regional ally, and conduit to Hezbollah, was tied down.
To keep her neighbors from democratizing, however, Saudi Arabia was spending vast sums of money on their stability, even while burning through cash domestically. In such a precarious situation, any one new development can threaten catastrophe.
There have been three.
Barack has left the building
Right as Saudi Arabia was about to go to war with Yemen, Riyadh asked erstwhile ally Pakistan to pitch in. It seems the kingdom may have assumed that the region's largest military, and only Muslim nuclear power, would happily sign up. But Pakistan's parliament, smarting from years of sectarian warfare, was in no mood to find itself in the middle of an Iranian-Saudi proxy war, and voted no.
Busy signing a nuclear deal with Iran, despite Israeli protestations and Saudi anxieties, US president Barack Obama was also not particularly interested. Add to this America's rising energy independence, and the Middle East became an afterthought in Washington.
Even worse news came just weeks after the deal limiting Iran's nuclear program was signed. Russia escalated its involvement in Syria, backing the Iranian ally. After nearly collapsing before a Sunni coalition, the Assad regime now had a lifeline: troops, hardware, and aircraft from one of the world's most powerful nuclear nations. The end result? Iran now may have the superpower backing Saudi Arabia once did.
Iranian showdown
Saudi Arabia's principal concern is preventing Iran from dominating the region. But, of course, Iran and Saudi Arabia are not equals. Iran is militarily far stronger, economically far more capable, and strategically far more sophisticated. Despite suffering years of sanctions, Iran has spread its influence across the region-and without these sanctions, will of course be more powerful. Despite enjoying years of cash windfalls, Saudi Arabia finds herself remarkably isolated.
The kingdom has put down tens of billions to keep Egypt on her side. Impoverished, struggling with an insurgency and governed by the same incompetent military elites who oversaw the country's decline from powerful regional player into irrelevancy, Egypt is more liability nowadays than asset.
This leaves GCC allies, who might be eager to help Saudi Arabia but they're too small to make a substantial difference.
A desperate Saudi Arabia has fewer and fewer options when it comes to counterbalancing Iran, none of them particularly suited to the task.
The four potential horsemen
Turkey might have seemed promising, with its NATO membership, shared interests in Syria, large military and Sunni Islamist government. But Turkey's increasingly authoritarian president is likely to restart a Kurdish insurgency and, anyhow, Turkey is well aware that Russian forces are to its north (Ukraine) and south (Syria), and now violating its airspace. Turkey's next moves will be hard to predict.
China's certainly powerful enough, but why would China intervene in a regional proxy war on the wrong side of Russia and Iran and the same side as America? Sure, China has energy needs-but China also doesn't need its own Afghanistan.
India's not as wealthy or powerful as China, but has a shared interest in combatting Islamic extremism. Too, under its far-right government, India's been tilting towards America and, more importantly, Israel-but India has a huge Muslim minority, many whom are Shia, and has few good reasons to get bogged down in a sectarian war.
Which brings us back to Israel, the Middle East's sole nuclear power. With the Netanyahu government's increasingly open hostility to even the idea of Palestinian statehood, the Saudis would seem unlikely to openly embrace Tel Aviv. But there is already tacit Israeli-Saudi cooperation, including talks and, in the GCC at larger, tentative steps towards trade and normalization, which have gradually come to light.
There will be more such cooperation, and more openly: Saudi Arabia and Israel already find themselves on the same side of issues. They are both opposed to the Iran Deal, dislike the idea of Assad's surviving in power, have different reasons for detesting Hezbollah and aren't very keen on Moscow backing up an Iranian proxy responsible for more deaths and more brutality than even ISIS. When the enemy of your enemy is also your enemy, you've no choice but to determine who you're less afraid of.
Welcome to the new Middle East.
Russia's New Mega-Missile Stuns the World - David Axe -
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/09/russia-s-new-mega-missile-stuns-the-globe.html?via=twitter_page
Putin's latest weapons were mostly unknown to the outside world-until they began slamming into Syria.
On Oct. 7, Russian warships in the Caspian Sea fired 26 high-tech cruise missiles at rebel targets in Syria-a staggering 1,000 miles away.
The missiles in question, which the Pentagon calls SS-N-30s, were mostly unknown to the outside world before the Oct. 7 raid. Even close watchers of the Russian military were surprised to see them. The missile attack was also highly visible. In many ways, it was an announcement to the world, and America in particular, that the once-dilapidated Russian navy is back in action-and that Putin's missiles are now among the planet's most advanced.
Planning for the missile attack began on Oct. 5, six days after Moscow's warplanes conducted their first bombing runs on rebel holdouts in western Syria. Russia is intervening in Syria ostensibly to help the Damascus regime defeat the so-called Islamic State widely known as ISIS, but the Russian attacks seem to be hitting ISIS's enemies more than the terror army itself. What's more, critics point out, Syria provides Moscow strategic access to the Mediterranean Sea.
"Russian reconnaissance had discovered a number of important objects of militants, which were to be destroyed immediately," the Russian Defense Ministry explained in a statement. Drones, surveillance satellites, radio interception, and human spies on the ground helped planners select the targets, the ministry added.
"The strikes engaged plants producing ammunition and explosives, command centers, storages of munitions, armament, and [oil], as well as a training camp of terrorists on the territory of Raqqa, Idlib, and Aleppo," according to the ministry. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said the missiles struck all 11 planned targets.
The Russian military celebrated the raid with a press release and an official video, and Shoigu went on national TV to praise the operation. Kurdish militiamen shot video they claimed depicted the missiles flying over northern Iraq. And the U.S. military apparently closely tracked the rocket-powered, guided munitions-and later claimed that several malfunctioned and crashed in Iran.
The media coverage was at least as important as the destruction of the alleged rebel facilities, U.S. defense officials told The Daily Beast on Wednesday. "This is Russia demonstrating on a global stage that it has a lot of reach," one official explained.
Eric Wertheim, an independent U.S. naval analyst and author of the definitive Combat Fleets of the World, a reference guide to warships and their weapons, agrees, saying of the missile volley: "I think it was a demonstration to the world."
Wertheim and other foreign analysts were familiar with an earlier version of the SS-N-30 called the SS-N-27, but the latter is an anti-ship missile and the analysts assumed it could only fly 150 miles or so-a fraction of the roughly thousand miles the rockets traveled during the recent raid.
The SS-N-30 obviously boasts a much greater range than its predecessors and can also strike targets on dry land. That makes it broadly similar to the American Tomahawk missile, which the U.S. military traditionally fires in large numbers from ships and submarines in order to wipe out enemy air defenses before conducting aerial bombing campaigns. The U.S. Navy fired Tomahawks to hit the most heavily defended ISIS targets at the beginning of the American-led air war over Syria in September 2014.
Very few countries possess Tomahawks or similar munitions-and only the United States and Great Britain have ever successfully used them in combat. Now Russia has joined that exclusive club of global military powers. And that should worry the Pentagon, Wertheim said: "It should be a wakeup call that we don't have a monopoly on the capability."
What's particularly striking is that Moscow has been able to build this long-range naval strike capability with much smaller vessels than anyone thought possible. In the U.S. Navy, large destroyers, cruisers, and submarines carry Tomahawk cruise missiles-and those vessels are typically at least 500 feet long and displace as many as 9,000 tons of water.
The four brand-new warships that launched the SS-N-30s were much, much smaller-ranging in length from 200 to 330 feet and displacing no more than 1,500 tons of water. "Small ships, big firepower," Wertheim commented.
That matters because, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia's shipbuilding industry suffered a long period of deep decline that the Kremlin has lately struggled to reverse. That has had a profound effect on the Russian navy. "There are relatively few new warships in service at present and the ones that have been commissioned in recent years are all relatively small," Dmitry Gorenburg, from Harvard University's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, wrote in a recent analysis.
But the October barrage proves that even the small warships that Russia is building can strike hard and far-something that, once upon a time, only the United States and its closest allies could do. Moscow's missile raid helps re-establish Russia as a global military power. "They're very serious about this," Wertheim said.
With Russian & Iranian forces now engaged in combat in Syria, people are asking, "What is the War of Gog & Magog?" Here's the answer, Part One - Joel C. Rosenberg - https://flashtrafficblog.wordpress.com/2015/10/08/with-russian-iranian-forces-now-engaged-in-combat-in-syria-people-are-asking-what-is-the-war-of-gog-magog-heres-the-answer-part-one/
With Russian and Iranian military forces now cooperating together and engaging in combat in Syria, just miles north of the border of Israel, people are asking me a lot of questions. Among them:
*Is there any significance to these developments in light of Bible prophecy?
*Do these events have anything to do with the prophecies found in Ezekiel 38 & 39?
*Are recent events setting the stage for the fulfillment of what Bible scholars call the "War of Gog & Magog" that is supposed to take place in the End of Days?
Last Friday night, I addressed the topic of Apocalyptic Islam at a conference in Toronto, looking at how Shia and Sunni extremists see the prophetic trend lines in the Middle East. On Saturday evening, I then taught through Ezekiel 38 & 39, addressing these specific questions in light of Jewish and Christian eschatology. From there, I flew to Istanbul to meet with several Arab Christian leaders on a range of matters. But sure enough, these questions certainly came up.
The short answer is this:
*It is simply too early to draw any conclusions regarding the Biblical significance of Russian and Iranian combat forces operating in an alliance in the Syrian theater, so close to the northern mountains of Israel. More would have to happen to convince me beyond the shadow of a doubt that these are prophetic events. And I urge Christians to be cautious and not jump to conclusions. Time will make things more clear.
*That said, there is cause to believe these events could be preparatory for the commencement of the "War of Gog & Magog." We can't rule out the possibility that prophetic events have been set in motion.
*Put another way: the fulfillment of Ezekiel 38 & 39 could be decades off, or more. However, these recent events - and numerous other regional trends - do appear consistent with what would have to happen to set the stage for Ezekiel's prophecies to come to pass, and the Church needs to consider the possibility that such prophecies could unfold sooner than many people expect.
*The central fact to remember first and foremost is this: The prophecies of Ezekiel 36 & 37 have already largely come true. That is, the geopolitical nation state of Israel has dramatically been reborn in our lifetime. Jewish people are returning to live and work in the Holy Land after centuries of exile. The Jews are rebuilding the ancient ruins and making the deserts bloom, just as the ancient prophets said they would. We are also seeing a growing number of Jewish people coming to faith in Jesus as Messiah, consistent with Ezekiel 37's prophecy that as the nation of Israel would be physical reborn in the last days, so too God would breathe His Holy Spirit into the Jewish people and more and more of them would be spiritually reborn in the last days, as well.
*Therefore, given the fact that Ezekiel 36 & 37 have largely come true, we must ask ourselves: Isn't it remotely possible that the prophecies of Ezekiel 38 & 39 could soon come to pass, as well?
WHAT IS THE "WAR OF GOG AND MAGOG"? Part One
For the next several days, I will lay out a point-by-point analysis of the prophecies found in Ezekiel 38 & 39. It's too much to explain all at once. So we'll take it piece by piece.
Today, let's start by defining "Gog" and "Magog," when Bible indicates this prophecy will take place, and what countries will be participating in the coalition against Israel:
1.The Hebrew Prophet Ezekiel lived in Babylon (Iraq) more than 2,500 years ago and the Lord gave him a vision of events that would take place in the future.
2.Ezekiel 38:16 specifically tells us these events will take place in the "last days" - that is in the End Times before the Messiah comes to set up His kingdom on earth.
3.Ezekiel chapters 36 and 37 set the stage for the "War of Gog and Magog" by describing that Israel will be reborn as a country in the last days, the Jewish people will come back to the Holy Land from exile all over the world, the Jewish people will rebuild the ancient ruins and make the deserts bloom again. These things have all happened, and this suggests we are getting closer to the fulfillment of the next set of prophecies.
4.Ezekiel 38:2 tells us that the war will be led be someone known as "Gog." This is not a personal name. We're not looking for someone named David Gog. Or Ahmed Gog. Or Dmitri Gog. Rather, "Gog" is a title, like a "Pharoah" or a "Czar." Through the prophecy, this Gog is described as a military leader, a political leader, and a coalition builder. In Ezekiel 38:10 he is described as developing an "evil plan," we know this is an evil man, a tyrant.
5.The Hebrew prophet gives us more clues. This "Gog" is going to be from the "land of Magog." One has to do some historical detective work to determine what Magog is, but it is possible. Flavius Josephus, the first century Roman historian, wrote in his famous book, The Antiquities of the Jews, that the people of Magog are the people whom the Greeks called "Scythians." This is a critical clue because we know from history that the Scythians were a people group that migrated from the Middle East northward and settled north of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea in the region we know today as Russia and the former Soviet Republics.
6.There are other interesting clues, as well. Ezekiel 38:15 says that Gog "will come from your place out of the remote parts of the north." Ezekiel 39:2 says Gog will come "from the remotest parts of the north" and come "against the mountains of Israel." The country that is farthest to the north in relation to Israel is Russia.
7.Thus, we can determine that a Russian dictator will build a diplomatic and military coalition to surround and attack the State of Israel in the End Times.
8.The question then is what other countries will be part of the coalition?
9.In Ezekiel 38:5, we learn that the first ally Russia will have is "Persia." Until 1935, of course, Persia was the legal name of the country we know today as Iran. So we know that Russia and Iran will build an alliance in the last days to attack Israel.
10.Ezekiel tells us that another country in the alliance will be what many English Bible translate as "Ethiopia." The Hebrew word, however, is "Cush" and Cush is the upper Nile region that we now know as Sudan. While the current state of Ethiopia may also be involved in the war, the focus is really Sudan, which today, of course, is a radical Islamic Sunni state closely allied with Iran and Russia and deeply anti-Semitic and anti-Israel.
11.Next, Ezekiel says a nation called "Put" will be part of the alliance. Josephus identifies "Put" as "ancient Lybios" - the territory that today we call Libya and Algeria. Interestingly, both countries today are deeply hostile to Israel and closely allied with Russia.
12.The next country mentioned is "Gomer." When one does the historical detective work, one learns that Gomer is what we now call Turkey. For much of the past 80 years, it didn't make sense that Turkey would turn against Israel. Why? Because Turkey was a NATO ally, and a friend of Israel, the U.S. and the European Union. But in the last few years, the Turkish government has swung dramatically away from the West, towards Russia and Iran, and become deeply hostile towards the State of Israel.
13.The next country Ezekiel mentions is "Beth Togarmah." This is the Turkic-speaking peoples that spread out from Turkey across the Causasus, and across Central Asia. We can't be certain precisely which modern nation states from this area will join the anti-Israel alliance, because these are almost all Muslim countries with close links to Russia and Iran.
14.Interestingly, Egypt is not mentioned by Ezekiel as part of the Russian-Iranian alliance against Israel. This is interesting because Egypt has been such an historic enemy of Israel and the Jewish people. That said, perhaps Egypt's non-involvement in the War of Gog and Magog could be explained by the peace treaty Egypt signed with Israel in 1979. This treaty is now in danger of unraveling, but at least for the near term Egypt is still unlikely to be in a position to strategically threaten Israel.
15.Iraq - whether under its biblical names of Babel, Babylon, Babylonia, Shinar, or Mesopotamia - isn't mentioned in the prophecy either, yet it, too, is an historic enemy of Israel. Still, given the liberation of Iraq in 2003, the subsequent violence, and the rebuilding now going on, Iraq is not likely to be a threat to Israel in the near term.
16.Syria and Lebanon are not mentioned by named in the prophecy either. However, Ezekiel tells us repeatedly that the main military force that will be coming against Israel will be coming from the north, which means they will be coming through Lebanon and Syria.
In my next posting, I'll explain what this coalition does and how the "War of Gog and Magog" will unfold.
Relative lull in terror as Israelis absorb first shock and gear up for the next round - http://www.debka.com/article/24948/Relative-lull-in-terror-as-Israelis-absorb-first-shock-and-gear-up-for-the-next-round
Israelis have absorbed the first shock of the wave of Palestinian terror unleashed in the last two weeks. The Palestinians are likely absorbing the package of tough penalties for terror and deterrents the Netanyahu government began putting together Tuesday night. Wednesday, Oct. 14, saw relative calm after the deadly violence reached a new peak Tuesday with the first Palestinian shooting attack on a Jerusalem bus - this time by adults.
The relative lull is expected to last only until the Palestinians and their Israeli Arab supporters take stock, before inevitably launching their next round of terror.
Meanwhile, Jerusalem saw "only" two stabbing attacks. In the first, a terrorist wearing army fatigues tried to stab a Border Guardsman at Nablus Gate in Jerusalem, and was shot and killed by policemen and visitors. Two hours later, another terrorist attacked a woman bus passenger at the city's central station. A police special ops officer ran after him up and shot him dead.
One of the counter-terror measures that went into effect Wednesday morning was the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee's approval of Emergency Order 8 authorizing the mobilization of an additional 600 Border Guards combatants from the reserves, over and above the 800 already called up.
debkafile's military experts note that the rapid processing of this new intake with equipment and operational orders will reduce the need to detach from their regular duties the 500 IDF soldiers allocated for manning the streets of Jerusalem.
That is all to the good, because managing police officers and soldiers in harness is bound to be problematic.
Israel is not the first country to inject military strength into its capital to fight terror. The British and French governments have been known to deploy paratroops and armed personnel carriers into the streets of London and Paris when they were beset by a rising level of terror. This deployment never lasted more than a few days - just enough to calm a terrified citizenry.
But Jerusalem is different. The state of security is such that soldiers once in place may face a long-term stay in the capital to contend with a long-running security threat.
Another difficulty is that the soldiers assigned to this mission have been pulled out of tank, artillery and engineering courses with no training for combating urban terror. Those who come from outside the city will furthermore need to familiarize themselves with a new environment and its rhythms.
The Jerusalem Police are special. They must cope with complex, demanding and multi-tasking challenges to the town's security. More than one terror attack may take place at different parts of the city. Unlike ordinary soldiers, they are trained and have the experience to quickly spot and take action against a terrorist in ordinary clothes who may pop up suddenly from among a large crowd to sow death.
A seasoned police officer can judge when to cut the assailant down to save lives and when to arrest him.
But the IDF servicemen to be recruited for anti-terror duties in support of security forces are much younger than the average policeman - on average around nineteen years old. Their firearms and kits are designed for conventional warfare on the Golan in the north or the Gaza Strip in the south - not for securing civilian buses or heavy vehicular and pedestrian traffic in a crowded city center.
That Border Guards reservists were hastily mobilized at the same time as the military units indicates that someone had the sense to understand that the presence of IDF troops on the streets and buses was good psychological first aid for people jumping at shadows for fear of a lone terrorist, but hardly an effective operational arm for the war on terror.
Russia Adds 111 Warheads Under Arms Treaty - Bill Gertz -
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/russia-adds-111-warheads-under-arms-treaty/
Moscow warheads above New START treaty limit
Russia has now deployed more than 100 nuclear warheads in its strategic arsenal above the limits set by the New START arms treaty limits-two years before it must meet treaty arms reduction goals.
New START nuclear warhead and delivery system numbers made public Oct. 1 reveal that since the 2010 arms accord went into force, Moscow increased the number of deployed nuclear warheads by a total of 111 weapons for a total of 1,648 deployed warheads. That number is 98 warheads above the treaty limit of 1,150 warheads that must be reached by the 2018 deadline of the treaty.
At the same time, U.S. nuclear warheads, missiles, and bombers have fallen sharply and remain below the required levels under the New START pact.
The United States during the same period of the Russian increases cut its deployed nuclear arsenal by 250 warheads.
The Russian increases and U.S. cuts bolster claims by critics who say the arms treaty is one-sided in constraining U.S. forces while the Russians appear to be ignoring the treaty limits as part of a major strategic forces buildup of missiles, submarines, and bombers.
Additionally, nuclear analysts say recent actions and statements suggest Russia may be preparing to jettison the New START treaty.
"Russia may pull out of the New START before it requires any Russians reductions," said former Pentagon nuclear policymaker Mark Schneider. "Director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's department of security and disarmament issues, Mikhail Ulyanov, said so in 2014 and 2015."
U.S. nuclear forces in 2011 included 882 land- and sea-based missiles and bombers, 1,800 deployed nuclear warheads, and 1,124 non-deployed launchers and bombers.
The United States today has 762 ICBMs, submarine-launched missiles and heavy bombers, 1,538 warheads and 898 non-deployed weapons.
For the same categories, Russia added five missiles for a total of 526, and 12 non-deployed launchers and bombers for a total of 877.
The Air Force in August carried out the first showing for Russian nuclear inspectors of a converted nuclear-capable B-52H bomber to a non-nuclear aircraft under the treaty. The bomber exhibition took place in September and thus was not counted in the latest U.S. figures for bomber cuts.
Additionally, the Navy also showed the first nuclear missile submarine with converted launch tubes under the treaty last month.
The United States plans to eliminate 98 launchers and heavy bombers under the treaty to reach the 800 treaty level for launchers and bombers by 2018.
Plans call for converting 30 B-52H bombers and 56 submarine-launched ballistic missile launchers and send 12 B-52Hs to the aircraft bone yard.
"To date, our reductions have been for inactive or weapon systems without a nuclear mission-104 ICBM launch facilities, 51 B-52Gs, and converting B-1s to conventional-only under the treaty," said one defense official.
By contrast, Russia under Vladimir Putin is embarked on a major strategic nuclear forces buildup that includes new missile submarines, upgrading older missile submarines and adding several new strategic missiles. Moscow, like the U.S. Air Force, is also planning a new bomber.
Additionally, Russia under Putin has announced a new doctrine that places a greater emphasis on nuclear forces.
During the crisis over Russia's military annexation of Ukraine's Crimea, Putin made threats to use nuclear forces against the United States and NATO if there were intervention to reverse the annexation.
Russian officials also have made nuclear threats against the United States in response to reports that NATO plans to move military forces into Eastern Europe in response to Russian threats.
Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, said Russia "is in the business of violating treaties."
"From the Intermediate range Nuclear Forces Treaty, to the Open Skies Treaty, to other conventional and unconventional arms control agreements-Russia violates any treaty or agreement that puts limits on capabilities that Mr. Putin and his cronies desire," Rogers said. "Russia's arguable adherence to the New START Treaty just indicates how bad a deal it is for the United States."
The nuclear numbers were disclosed by the State Department's bureau of arms control, verification, and compliance.
Blake Narendra, a State Department spokesperson for the arms control bureau, said officials are aware of the increase in Russian deployed warheads and delivery vehicles. But he sought to play down the buildup.
"The United States and Russia continue to implement the New START Treaty in a business-like manner," Narendra said. "We fully expect Russia to meet the New START Treaty central limits in accordance with the stipulated timeline of February 2018."
By that date, Moscow and Washington must reach limits of no more than 700 deployed treaty limited delivery vehicles and 1,550 deployed warheads.
Despite the U.S. cuts, Narendra said "our declared forces show clearly that the United States maintains a capable deterrent force capable of defending our interests and those of our friends and allies."
The increase in Russian numbers was anticipated as Moscow replaces older weapons, Narendra said, adding "we have known for a long time about Russia's modernization of its strategic nuclear arsenal."
The spokesman defended the utility of the treaty despite the Russian buildup that has included unprecedented nuclear threats against NATO. The treaty provides knowledge of numbers and locations of Russian strategic forces "at a time when we need it the most," he said.
Schneider, now a senior analyst at the National Institute for Public Policy, said Russia is now at the highest level of deployed nuclear warheads since the New START treaty went into force.
"For the last three reporting periods-18 months-Russia has moved from below New START limits in deployed warheads and deployed delivery vehicles to above them," said Schneider.
"In all three limited categories-deployed warheads, deployed delivery vehicles and deployed and non-deployed delivery vehicles-Russia is above its entry into force numbers from 2011".
Schneider said a flaw in the treaty counting numbers allowed the Russians to under count bomber weapons so that Russia may have between 400 to 500 more bomber-delivered warheads than the United States.
"The U.S. left may not think this is very important, but the Russians do and it is their finger on the Russian nuclear trigger," Schneider said.
Adm. William Gortney, commander of the U.S. Northern Command, which is in charge of defending the continental United States, said Russia is qualitatively building up its military forces, with a new doctrine and, in particular, new cruise missiles capable of hitting the United States from Russian airspace.
"They've read our play book and they're putting in force, they're fielding cruise missiles that are very, very accurate, very long range," Gortney said Wednesday in remarks to the Atlantic Council, a think tank.
The new missile has been identified by other defense officials as a KH-101 air launched cruise missile that can be armed with either nuclear or conventional warheads.
The missile can reach U.S. infrastructure targets in Canada and the United States from launch points within Russian air space, Gortney said.
Gortney said the Russians have been "messaging" the United States with long-range nuclear-capable bomber flights along U.S. and Canadian borders.
War game scenarios in recent months have included simulated Russian conventional cruise missile strikes on long-range early warning radar in Alaska, he said.
The military blog Russianforces.org said the increase of 66 Russian warheads and nine launchers since March, when the last treaty numbers were released, probably reflects Moscow's deployment of new submarine-launched Bulava missiles on the new submarine Alexander Nevsky, launched in April.
Army Lt. Col. Martin O'Donnell, a spokesman for the U.S. Strategic Command, said the treaty "continues to enhance security and strategic stability."
"We fully expect Russia to meet the New START Treaty central limits in accordance with the stipulated timeline of February 2018," he said.
Thomas Moore, a former professional staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who specialized in arms control, said he is not surprised the Russians are over treaty limits while the the United States is below them.
"But I guess we are under it early because 'business-like' implementation of the treaty is a way the administration can appear to be doing something, and they have a base of left-wing support which demands we go lower still, and faster," Moore said.
Russia has been building up its forces steadily, he added.
"Its raid of Kalibr cruise missiles from the Caspian to targets in Syria is another sign that, along with New START warhead numbers, its nuclear-capable systems, strategic warheads, and overall nuclear capability at all ranges and with all types of weapons is building up, not down."
Insider prophetic information on the Ezekiel 38 alliance - Bill Wilson - www.dailyjot.com
With Russia in Syria and the Middle East in an uproar, a lot of talk is placed on the Ezekiel 38 prophecy. But there is more to the Ezekiel 38 alliance than meets the eye. Let's roll back to July of 2012. Turkey was actively selling gold in noticeable amounts. Bullion Vault, an online gold market research company reported that Turkey had exported $4.02 billion worth of gold between January and May that year. The information was confirmed in several independent stories. Iran was the purchaser of Turkey's gold--some $3 billion worth, amounting to nearly 60 tons. In turn, Turkey bought millions of tons of oil from Iran despite a commitment at the time to uphold US and European Union oil sanctions against Iran.
Iran used the gold to buy food supplies. In a typical end time "Beast"-like move, the European Union, toothless as it is, banned the trade of gold bullion, oil and diamonds with Iran. Turkey is an associate member of the European Union and has applied for full membership. It, however, skirted the sanctions issue by using gold to pay for Iranian Oil. According to Bullion Vault, the Vice Chairman of the Istanbul Gold Refinery Gokhan Aksu said, "Iran is very keen to increase the share of gold in its total reserves." This seems to demonstrate that a ban on buying foodstuffs is inconsequential when using gold as the currency. It also gives some insight on how these public enemies work as private allies.
It is obvious to many analysts that Turkey, while playing the West as a secular democratic ally, is in actuality using its Islamic political influence and economic capital to bring Iran and other Islamic states into its orbit. Turkey is considered a power broker in the Middle East that has gravitated from an ostensible secular democracy toward Islam in recent years. Another twist is that while the US "president" publicly promoted sanctions against Iran, in 2012 he granted Turkey a temporary waiver exempting it from US sanctions, as reported by Reuters, indicating the US exempted all 20 of Iran's top oil buyers from the sanctions because they slightly reduced oil imports.
In reality, Turkey sidestepped US and European sanctions on Iran by paying for oil with gold with the US "president's" help. Not many years ago analysts would have scoffed at the idea that Turkey, the gemstone of secular democracy in an Islamic dominated region, would go rogue and begin siding with fundamental Islamist regimes. Recall to memory, however, that less than 100 years have passed since Turkey dissolved the Islamic Caliphate that ruled the entire region. Now it appears to be in a revival with the help of the US, and Turkey plays a major role both politically and prophetically. Remember Ezekiel 38:3 where God says, "Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal." Magog, Meshech and Tubal are located in modern day Turkey.
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