Russia Doubling Nuclear Warheads - Bill Gertz -
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/russia-doubling-nuclear-warheads/
New multiple-warhead missiles to break arms treaty limit
Russia is doubling the number of its strategic nuclear warheads on new missiles by deploying multiple reentry vehicles that have put Moscow over the limit set by the New START arms treaty, according to Pentagon officials.
A recent intelligence assessment of the Russian strategic warhead buildup shows that the increase is the result of the addition of multiple, independently targetable reentry vehicles, or MIRVs, on recently deployed road-mobile SS-27 and submarine-launched SS-N-32 missiles, said officials familiar with reports of the buildup.
"The Russians are doubling their warhead output," said one official. "They will be exceeding the New START [arms treaty] levels because of MIRVing these new systems."
The 2010 treaty requires the United States and Russia to reduce deployed warheads to 1,550 warheads by February 2018.
The United States has cut its warhead stockpiles significantly in recent years. Moscow, however, has increased its numbers of deployed warheads and new weapons.
The State Department revealed in January that Russia currently has exceeded the New START warhead limit by 98 warheads, deploying a total number of 1,648 warheads. The U.S. level currently is below the treaty level at 1,538 warheads.
Officials said that in addition to adding warheads to the new missiles, Russian officials have sought to prevent U.S. weapons inspectors from checking warheads as part of the 2010 treaty.
The State Department, however, said it can inspect the new MIRVed missiles.
Disclosure of the doubling of Moscow's warhead force comes as world leaders gather in Washington this week to discus nuclear security-but without Russian President Vladimir Putin, who skipped the conclave in an apparent snub of the United States.
The Nuclear Security Summit is the latest meeting of world leaders seeking to pursue President Obama's 2009 declaration of a world without nuclear arms.
Russia, however, is embarked on a major strategic nuclear forces build-up under Putin. Moscow is building new road-mobile, rail-mobile, and silo-based intercontinental-range missiles, along with new submarines equipped with modernized missiles. A new long-range bomber is also being built.
"Russia's modernization program and their nuclear deterrent force is of concern," Adm. Cecil Haney, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, which is in charge of nuclear forces, told Congress March 10.
"When you look at what they've been modernizing, it didn't just start," Haney said. "They've been doing this quite frankly for some time with a lot of crescendo of activity over the last decade and a half."
By contrast, the Pentagon is scrambling to find funds to pay for modernizing aging U.S. nuclear forces after seven years of sharp defense spending cuts under Obama.
Earlier this month, Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress that Russia continues to pose the greatest threat to the United States.
"The one that has the greatest capability and poses the greatest threat to the United States is Russia because of its capabilities-its nuclear capability, its cyber capability, and clearly because of some of the things we have seen in its leadership behavior over the last couple of years," Dunford said.
In addition to a large-scale nuclear buildup, Russia has upgraded its nuclear doctrine and its leaders and officials have issued numerous threats to use nuclear arms against the United States in recent months, compounding fears of a renewed Russian threat.
Blake Narendra, spokesman for the State Department's arms control, verification, and compliance bureau, said the Russian warhead build-up is the result of normal fluctuations due to modernization prior to the compliance deadline.
"The Treaty has no interim limits," Narendra told the Free Beacon. "We fully expect Russia to meet the New START treaty central limits in accordance with the stipulated timeline of February 2018. The treaty provides that by that date both sides must have no more than 700 deployed treaty-limited delivery vehicles and 1,550 deployed warheads."
Both the United States and Russia continue to implement the treaty in "a business-like manner," he added.
Mark Schneider, a former Pentagon official involved in strategic nuclear forces, however, said he has warned for years that Russia is not reducing its nuclear forces under the treaty.
Since the New START arms accord, Moscow has eliminated small numbers of older SS-25 road-mobile missiles. But the missiles were replaced with new multiple-warhead SS-27s.
"The Russians have not claimed to have made any reductions for five years," Schneider said
Additionally, Russian officials deceptively sought to make it appear their nuclear forces have been reduced during a recent nuclear review conference.
"If they could have claimed to have made any reductions under New START counting rules they would have done it there," Schneider said.
The Obama administration also has been deceptive about the benefits of New START.
"The administration public affairs talking points on New START reductions border on outright lies," Schneider said.
"The only reductions that have been made since New START entry into force have been by the United States," he said. "Instead, Russia has moved from below the New START limits to above the New START limits in deployed warheads and deployed delivery vehicles."
Deployment of new multiple-warhead SS-27s and SS-N-32s are pushing up the Russian warhead numbers. Published Russian reports have stated the missiles will be armed with 10 warheads each.
Former Defense Secretary William Perry said Thursday that New START was "very helpful" in promoting strategic stability but that recent trends in nuclear weapons are "very, very bad."
"When President Obama made his speech in Prague, I thought we were really set for major progress in this field [disarmament]," Perry said in remarks at the Atlantic Council.
However, Russian "hostility" to the United States ended the progress. "Everything came to a grinding halt and we're moving in reverse," Perry said.
Other nuclear powers that are expanding their arsenals include China and Pakistan, Perry said.
Perry urged further engagement with Russia on nuclear weapons. "We do have a common interest in preventing a nuclear catastrophe," he said.
Perry is advocating that the United States unilaterally eliminate all its land-based missiles and rely instead on nuclear missile submarines and bombers for deterrence.
However, he said his advocacy of the policy "may be pursuing a mission impossible."
"I highly doubt the Russians would follow suit" by eliminating their land-based missiles, the former secretary said.
Additionally, Moscow is building a new heavy ICBM called Sarmat, code-named SS-X-30 by the Pentagon, that will be equipped with between 10 and 15 warheads per missile. And a new rail-based ICBM is being developed that will also carry multiple warheads.
Another long-range missile, called the SS-X-31, is under development and will carry up to 12 warheads.
Schneider, the former Pentagon official, said senior Russian arms officials have been quoted in press reports discussing Moscow's withdrawal from the New START arms accord. If that takes place, Russia will have had six and a half years to prepare to violate the treaty limits, at the same time the United States will have reduced its forces to treaty limits.
"Can they comply with New START? Yes. They can download their missile warheads and do a small number to delivery systems reductions," Schneider said. "Will they? I doubt it. If they don't start to do something very soon they are likely to pull the plug on the treaty. I don't see them uploading the way they have, only to download in the next two years."
The White House said Moscow's failure to take part in the nuclear summit was a sign of self-isolation based on the West's sanctions aimed at punishing Russia for the military takeover of Ukraine's Crimea.
A Russian official said the snub by Putin was directed at Obama.
"This summit is particularly important for the USA and for Obama-this is probably why Moscow has decided to go for this gesture and show its outrage with the West's policy in this manner," Alexei Arbatov, director of the Center for International Security at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told the business newspaper Vedomosti.
A Russian Foreign Ministry official, Mikhail Ulyanov, told RIA Novosti that the summit was not needed.
"There is no need for it, to be honest," he said, adding that nuclear security talks should be the work of nuclear physicists, intelligence services, and engineers.
"The political agenda of the summits has long been exhausted," Ulyanov said.
North Korea fires missile, vows to boost "nuclear deterrence" - http://www.cbsnews.com/news/north-korea-fires-short-range-missile-into-sea/
North Korea fired a short-range missile into the sea and warned it would continue developing its nuclear weapons on Friday, hours after the U.S., South Korean and Japanese leaders pledged to work closer together to prevent the North from advancing its nuclear and missile programs.
The surface-to-air missile fired from an eastern coastal area flew into waters off the North's east coast, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. It gave no further details.
The missile is the latest in a series of weapon launches by the North in an apparent response to ongoing military exercises between the United States and South Korea. North Korea views the drills as an invasion rehearsal.
"If the United States continues (drills with the South), then we have to make the countermeasures also, as I told you. So, we have to develop and we have to make more deterrence, nuclear deterrence," the North's ambassador to the United Nations, So Se Pyong, told the Reuters news agency in Geneva.
So told Reuters the military exercises were an overt U.S. threat of "decapitation of the supreme leadership" of North Korea, adding that the peninsula was in a state of "semi-war."
This year's drills, set to run until late April, are the biggest, and come after North Korea's nuclear test and long-range rocket test earlier this year.
In Washington, President Obama on Thursday met with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts to discuss ways of deterring North Korea's nuclear threats before a two-day nuclear summit that opens Friday. Obama also met Chinese President Xi Jinping and both called for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. China also agreed to implement in full the latest economic restrictions imposed by the U.N. Security Council against Pyongyang.
"Of great importance to both of us is North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons, which threatens the security and stability of the region. President Xi and I are both committed to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," Mr. Obama said at the start of his meeting with Xi.
"China and the U.S. have a responsibility to work together," Xi said in his comments made to reporters through an interpreter. As for their "disputes and disagreements," the Chinese leader said the two sides could "seek active solutions through dialogue and consultation."
North Korea's fourth nuclear test in January, followed by a space a launch in February, have heralded more convergence among often-fractious powers in East Asia -- at least on the need to press the government of Kim Jong Un toward disarming.
On Tuesday, North Korea fired a short-range projectile that crashed on land in the country's northeast, according to South Korean defense officials. The launch prompted media speculation in South Korea that Pyongyang may have used a land target to test the accuracy of its weapons. In the past, the North has usually fired missiles, artillery shells and rockets into the sea.
Earlier this month, North Korea fired its first medium-range missile into the sea since early 2014.
Along with missile and artillery launches, North Korea has also repeated threats of nuclear strikes on Seoul and Washington and warned it would tests a nuclear warhead and ballistic missiles capable of carrying it.
Also Friday, South Korea blamed North Korea for sending radio waves to jam GPS signals in South Korea, calling it a provocation. There were no reports of major disruptions in South Korean military, air and naval transport and telecommunication systems.
Media reported that some fishing boats suffered problems in their GPS navigation systems.
'This Intifada is worse than the last' - http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/This-Intifada-is-worse-than-the-last-449648
New survey finds that the majority of those asked said that they felt "the security situation is more serious today compared to the Second Intifada."
Six months into a wave of stabbings, shootings and car ramming attacks by Palestinians against Israelis, the strain is showing. A survey conducted by the Smith Polling Institute found that the majority of those asked said that they felt "the security situation is more serious today compared to the Second Intifada."
Since mid-September, 34 Israelis have been killed in attacks by Palestinians. In this time period there have been 211 stabbings, 83 shootings and 42 vehicular attacks, according to information on the Foreign Ministry's website. Approximately 200 Palestinians were killed by Israelis over the same period, 130 of whom were said by Israel to have been conducting an attack at the time of their death. The remaining 70 people died in clashes with Israeli security forces or with Jewish residents living in the West Bank.
The Second Intifada (Palestinian uprising) lasted from 2000 to 2005 and was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis. Suicide bombings were a frequent occurrence in those years. Opinion differs as to whether the recent increase in violence in Israel and the Palestinian Territories amounts to a full intifada or not.
"An indifferent reaction cannot be expected from the Israeli public when the level of risk to the citizens has increased significantly," Pini Schiff, CEO of the National Association of Security Companies, said in a statement released with the findings of the polling.
Statistics from the survey were released in anticipation of the Israel Security Conference taking place on April 12 which will bring together elements from the Israeli private security sector and official institutions such as the police, intelligence agencies and the Ministry of the Interior. Of the 500 adult Israelis polled, 51% said that they found security worse now than in the early 2000s. A further 53% said they felt their personal security had diminished in the last two or three years.
"Now it's the Third Intifada and it is the worst one (of the three)," Galit, a shop worker selling bags and accessories on Jaffa Road, Jerusalem's main commercial street, told The Media Line. The frequency and the random nature of the current 'lone wolf' attacks are what makes them so scary, she suggested. "With the (suicide) bombings it was one at a time - one every two, three four months. The stabbings happen every day."
Not everyone agrees. While acknowledging that attacks are occurring more frequently today, Dan Levi, a young Israeli working at the Jerusalem Hostel, said that the lethal nature of the bombings fifteen years ago contributed to a greater feeling of insecurity. "The Second Intifada was serious. I was a teenager and I knew people who died. Buses were exploding, it was really scary," he told The Media Line.
As a result of the current violence, 56% of those asked said that they "refrained from travelling on public transportation and/or entering crowded public places."
During the Second Intifada it became common for Israelis to avoid eating in restaurants or traveling on buses, both of which were viewed as easy targets for suicide bombers. Samuel, a young religious Israeli who immigrated to the country from America four years ago, told The Media Line he felt his security was no better or worse than it was when he first arrived, though he conceded he had changed his behavior because of the recent attacks.
"I don't walk through the Muslim quarter (of the Old City) anymore on my way to the Kotel (Western Wall). It's quicker, it saves me about ten minutes, but I walk the roundabout way through Jaffa Gate now," he said.
This he does on account of the recent spate of stabbings which Samuel described as the main danger today. A year ago car rammings and attacks on public transport were the greater threat so he avoided standing at bus stops or traveling on the train, he explained. At the upcoming security conference the role of security guards and armed civilians as a counter-weight to the unpredictable phenomenon of 'lone wolf' attacks will be discussed.
"If you look at what's happened in the last six, seven months, most of these terror attacks were stopped by (armed) civilians," Iran Gil, CEO of the security firm HSMT, told The Media Line.
A question on the agenda is how much responsibility for security the state should relinquish to civilians. There is a balancing act required between allowing civilians, who may have limited training, to be armed, and protecting people from ongoing attacks, Gil said. In the meantime, the role of security guards is emerging as an important, and often first, line of defense.
"Just yesterday (parliament) passed a law that security personnel should go home with their weapons (at the end of a work shift). This means an extra 50,000 weapons (will be) on the streets every day," the CEO said.
This might be a comfort to the 69% of Israelis polled who said they felt "that a civilian carrying a weapon in a public place largely contributes to a sense of personal security."
'ISIS is planning a major attack in Israel' - David Rosenberg -
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/209999#.Vvlcwo-cE2x
ISIS affiliate in Gaza claims ISIS will increasingly focus on US and Israel, promises a major attack in Israel is only a matter of time.
While Islamic State (ISIS) attacks in Europe and massacres in Syria and Iraq have dominated the headlines in recent months, the radical Islamic terror group may be shifting its focus, placing a greater emphasis on Israel and the United States.
This Sunday, a Gazan Salafist official and ISIS affiliate Abu al-Ayna al-Ansari spoke with an American journalist, Aaron Klein, about the terror organization's capabilities and future plans.
Al-Ansari, who is believed to have close ties to ISIS, emphasized that the terror organization would be focusing on Israel and the US, and viewed those two nations as its primary enemies in the pursuit of an Islamic caliphate.
"Israel and the United States are at the top of the list of the targets of the Islamic State," Al-Ansari said on the Aaron Klein Investigative Radio show. "The Islamic State educates its people that Israel and the United States are the leaders of the infidels and we believe that Israel should be disappeared [sic]."
Perhaps most disturbing, however, are reports that ISIS is building an extensive terror infrastructure along Israel's southern border. Taking advantage of the minimal Egyptian presence in the Sinai, Wilayat Sinai (Sinai Province), an affiliate of ISIS, has expanded its capabilities for a potential attack on Israel.
According to Al-Ansari, ISIS is already planning its first major attack on Israeli soil. A major ISIS attack on Israel, he claims, is only a matter of time.
"I can confirm that it is only a question of time when there will be a big operation in Eilat and in the south of Israel. The Wilayat Sinai will be the ones responsible for the confrontation with Israel."
Speaking with Israel Army Radio, Yehuda Cohen, the commander of the IDF's Sagi Brigade which secures the border with Egypt, admitted that such an attack was indeed likely.
"In the end it must be remembered this organization was formed by terrorists that dream of a terror attack against Israel, and it will come. It's clear that there will be a terror attack against Israel, I believe that it will happen during my tenure," Cohen said.
While Israel has hitherto been spared the horrors ISIS has inflicted on Syria and Iraq, ISIS activity against Israel has been on the rise in recent months. In February a Sudanese national, allegedly inspired by ISIS, stabbed and wounded an Israeli soldier, in what is believed to be the first successful ISIS attack in Israel.
Earlier in March a suicide bomber affiliated with ISIS bombed a popular shopping center in Istanbul, murdering three Israelis and wounding dozens after tracking the Israeli tourists from their hotel.
Just this Monday two Arab residents of Jerusalem were charged with planning bombing attacks on Jerusalem for ISIS - the latest in a string of small ISIS cells broken up by Israeli security forces while planning attacks.
BE SURE TO CHECK OUT MY ALL NEW PROPHECY AND CREATION DESIGN WEBSITES. THERE IS A LOT TO SEE AND DO..........
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.