'There's a war coming,' Marine Corps general warns US troops
Published December 23, 2017
A Marine Corps commandant on Thursday warned U.S. troops stationed in Norway to be prepared for a coming war.
“I hope I’m wrong, but there’s a war coming,” Gen. Robert Neller told them. “You’re in a fight here, an informational fight, a political fight, by your presence.”
"I hope I'm wrong, but there's a war coming. You're in a fight here, an informational fight, a political fight, by your presence."
Neller pointed to the near future possibility of Russia and the Pacific theater being the next major areas of conflict.
Sgt. Maj. Ronald Green sounded a similar tone.
"Just remember why you're here," Green said. "They're watching. Just like you watch them, they watch you. We've got 300 Marines up here; we could go from 300 to 3,000 overnight. We could raise the bar."
The warnings came a day before Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told troops at Fort Bragg, N.C., that "storm clouds are gathering" over the Korean Peninsula.
Whether the comments were more than motivational rhetoric remained unclear.
Neller and Green's arrival in Norway coincided with heightened tensions between the U.S. and its NATO allies and Russia. According to Military.com, Russia warned Norway that its decision to host a new unit of U.S. troops through the end of 2018 would negatively affect relations.
"Just remember why you're here. They're watching. Just like you watch them, they watch you. We've got 300 Marines up here; we could go from 300 to 3,000 overnight. We could raise the bar."
Norway has insisted having U.S. troops stationed there is merely part of an effort to enhance ties with NATO allies and conduct cold-weather combat operations.
At a Q&A session with the troops in the Norwegian Home Guard base near Trondheim, Neller said that the U.S. could shift its focus from the Middle East to Eastern Europe, citing Russia’s conflicts with Ukraine and Georgia as justification. He told the Marines that they should be prepared for a “big-ass fight” on the horizon.
Russia has reportedly been uneasy about the presence of American troops close to its borders. The 300 U.S. Marines deployed to Norway in June 2016 were the first foreign troops allowed to operate in the country since World War II.
In September of this year, Russia conducted a joint-military exercise with neighboring Belarus that involved 12,700 troops.
A new National Security Strategy unveiled by the Trump administration on Monday singled out Russia and China as two world powers challenging “American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity.”
Mattis: 'Storm clouds gathering' over Korean Peninsula
Published December 22, 2017
FORT BRAGG, N.C. � "Storm clouds are gathering" over the Korean Peninsula, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis declared Friday. And as diplomats try to resolve the nuclear standoff, he told soldiers that the U.S. military must do its part by being ready for war.
Without forecasting a conflict, Mattis emphasized that diplomacy stands the best chance of preventing a war if America's words are backed up by strong and prepared armed forces.
"My fine young soldiers, the only way our diplomats can speak with authority and be believed is if you're ready to go," Mattis told several dozen soldiers and airmen at the 82nd Airborne Division's Hall of Heroes, his last stop on a two-day pre-holiday tour of bases to greet troops.
Mattis' comments came as the U.N. Security Council unanimously approved tough new sanctions against North Korea, compelling nations to sharply reduce their sales of oil to the reclusive country and send home all North Korean expatriate workers within two years. Such workers are seen as a key source of revenue for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's cash-strapped government.
President Donald Trump and other top U.S. officials have made repeated threats about U.S. military action. Some officials have described the messaging as twofold in purpose: to pressure North Korea to enter into negotiations on getting rid of its nuclear arsenal, and to motivate key regional powers China and Russia to put more pressure on Pyongyang so a war is averted.
For the military, the focus has been on ensuring soldiers are ready should the call come.
At Fort Bragg, Mattis recommended the troops read T.R. Fehrenbach's military classic "This Kind of War: A Study in Unpreparedness," first published in 1963, a decade after the Korean War ended.
"Knowing what went wrong the last time around is as important as knowing your own testing, so that you're forewarned � you know what I'm driving at here," he said as soldiers listened in silence. "So you gotta be ready."
The retired Marine Corps general fielded questions on many topics. But North Korea kept coming up as troops wondered whether war looms.
Asked about recent reports that families of U.S. service members in South Korea might be evacuated, Mattis stressed his belief that diplomacy could still avert a crisis. He said there is no plan now for an evacuation.
"I don't think it's at that point yet," he said, adding that an evacuation of American civilians would hurt the South Korean economy. He said there is a contingency plan that would get U.S. service members' families out "on very short notice."
Mattis said he sees little chance of Kim disrupting the Winter Olympics, which begin in South Korea in February.
"I don't think Kim is stupid enough to take on the whole world by killing their athletes," he said.
Still, Mattis seemed determined to steel U.S. troops against what could be a costly war on the Korean Peninsula even as he at one point argued that diplomacy is "going positively."
"There is very little reason for optimism," he said.
House passes $700B defense bill amid North Korea threat
Published November 14, 2017
WASHINGTON � House Republicans and Democrats joined forces Tuesday to decisively approve a defense policy bill that authorizes $700 billion to restock what lawmakers have described as a depleted U.S. military and counter North Korea's advancing nuclear weapons program.
Lawmakers voted 356-70 to pass the legislation, with 127 Democrats backing the measure. Once the defense bill clears the Senate, which is expected this week, the bill will be sent to President Donald Trump for his signature.
The defense bill for the 2018 fiscal year allots some $634 billion for core Pentagon operations and nearly $66 billion for wartime missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. The funding boost pays for more troops, jet fighters, ships and other weapons needed to halt an erosion of the military's combat readiness, according to the bill's backers.
Trump's 2018 request sought $603 billion for basic functions and $65 billion for overseas missions. But securing the higher amounts remains contingent upon Congress reaching an agreement to roll back a 2011 law that set strict limits on most federal spending. That's a lot harder than it sounds, however. Lifting the budget caps will face resistance from Democrats who also are seeking to increase the budgets for domestic agencies.
Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, voted for the bill while also criticizing Congress for refusing to come to grips with its out-of-control approach to budgeting. Smith said it's inconsistent for Republicans to push for billions of dollars more in defense spending while also advocating tax overhaul legislation that will deepen federal deficits over the next decade.
Even if Congress had a "fit of fiscal responsibility" and decided to raise revenue instead of cutting it, Smith said, "we're still looking at needs within the national security budget ... that are wildly beyond the amount of money that we have."
Republicans insist tax cuts will essentially pay for themselves by spurring economic growth. But the Armed Services Committee chairman, Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, urged his colleagues to focus on the military's immediate and substantial needs.
"It is morally wrong to send men and women out on missions with our military, for which they are not fully supported, fully trained, (and) equipped with the best equipment our country can provide," he said.
The defense legislation includes $12.3 billion for the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency and orders a more rapid buildup of the nation's missile defenses as Pyongyang has refused to back away from developing nuclear missiles capable of striking the United States.
The bill includes money for as many as 28 additional Ground-Based Interceptors, which are anti-missile missiles that would be launched from underground silos in Alaska in the event the U.S. decided to try to shoot down a North Korean missile heading toward the United States. The interceptors are designed to directly hit the enemy missile outside the Earth's atmosphere, obliterating it by the force of impact.
Lawmakers also have required Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to develop a plan for increasing the overall number of so-called GBIs from 44 to 104. The bill also directs the Pentagon to procure more ship-based interceptors and missiles for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, a U.S. mobile anti-missile system.
North Korea's U.N. ambassador, Ja Song Nam, said in a letter Monday to Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres that the unprecedented deployment of three U.S. aircraft carrier groups "taking up a strike posture" around the Korean peninsula has made it impossible to predict when nuclear war will break out. The carriers are participating in joint naval exercises with North Korea.
"The large-scale nuclear war exercises and blackmails, which the U.S. staged for a whole year without a break in collaboration with its followers to stifle our republic, make one conclude that the option we have taken was the right one and we should go along the way to the last," Ja's letter reads.
The policy bill also grants U.S. troops a 2.4 percent pay raise, which is slightly higher than the wage increase the Pentagon had proposed.
Lawmakers also approved an increase of more than 20,000 active-duty and reserve troops from last year's level. The Army gets the largest boost and will receive 7,500 more active-duty Army soldiers and 1,000 additional reserve troops.
The defense bill provides money for 90 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, 20 more than Trump asked for, as well as 24 F/A-18 Super Hornet jet fighters, 10 more than requested. The budget also includes three Littoral Combat Ships, two beyond the budget request. The ships are new to the fleet and operate in congested areas near the shore against small boats and mines.
Hamas Waiting for Opportunity To Turn Judea & Samaria Into Another Gaza - By Yaakov Lappin -
Hamas's latest effort to join a Palestinian unity government is little more than a facade, and the terror group's top immediate objective is to seize control of Judea and Samaria and turn it into a second Gaza, according to the assessments of defense experts.
After years of failed attempts at reconciliation, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement and Hamas in October announced that they would implement a unity deal, which included the restoration of PA control in Gaza by Dec. 1.
But the so-called unification quickly ran into trouble, and was delayed to Dec. 10. Now, the reconciliation agreement is apparently collapsing, and Hamas seems to be in no rush to revive it.
"Hamas is just waiting for Abbas to die, or that he agrees to elections, to try and take over the West Bank," Dr. Ely Karmon, a senior scholar at Israel's International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), told JNS regarding the 82-year-old Palestinian leader. "And Hamas is again talking about close ties with Iran and Hezbollah."
Dr. Col. (res.) Moshe Elad, one of the founders and former heads of the security coordination between the IDF and the PA, said the PA is utterly dependent on Israel's military presence in Judea and Samaria to prevent a second Hamas-armed Islamist revolution.
Elad, who today lectures at the Western Galilee College, said IDF-PA coordination is "the insurance policy" that the PA has in Judea and Samaria for its survival, since "Hamas is very strong there."
"Hamas can't launch a revolution in Judea and Samaria...but it's a threat that exists all of the time," Elad told JNS. "It's true that on the surface, PA President Mahmoud Abbas attacks Israel, but ultimately, he wants us to be there, so that we can give him security against the possibility of a revolution by Hamas.
As absurd as it sounds, he understands that Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria, because of the settlers, holds benefits for him. This means there is a very big convergence of interests...if we leave the area, he will be in a major problem. This is exactly what happened in Gaza."
Elad was referring to the 2007 Gaza coup, which saw Hamas's gunmen seize the coastal territory by force and kill Fatah personnel, widening a massive rift between the two Palestinian camps. The latest stalled reconciliation effort was aimed at bridging this gap. But Elad believes such attempts should not be taken seriously.
According to Elad, Saleh al-Arouri--a senior Hamas operative who is part of a shadow overseas command structure for the terror group that orchestrates attacks from afar--has "sent letters to Hamas operatives in which he ordered them to prepare a similar coup in Judea and Samaria.
Abbas knows that the five to six battalions the PA has cannot keep him in power over time on their own. He needs Israel."
Elad, who has written two books on the Palestinians, said he has counted more than 25 unification attempts between Hamas and the PA since 2007.
"It never succeeds," he said. "The Egyptians, the Turks, the Qataris and Saudis--who hasn't tried to mediate? There is a deeper story here than many realize. Hamas will not give up its armed force [in Gaza] so easily."
On the streets of Palestinian cities, towns and villages in Judea and Samaria, the PA continues to repress Hamas, Elad added.
"In terms of popularity, Hamas is stronger than the PA, because the PA controls by force and authority, and not through public support," he said. "There are areas outside of the Muqata (the PA's government complex in Ramallah) where Abbas cannot visit. There are two camps here--a two-headed Palestinian system. Reunification is irrelevant."
In line with Elad's assessments, the Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency and IDF ground units in Judea and Samaria continue to operate day and night to keep Hamas in check. Israeli preventative operations represent the majority of the force that is in place against Hamas, with the PA's own efforts--motivated by self-preservation--forming the minority of anti-Hamas operations.
In recent days, the Shin Bet announced that it had disrupted a Hamas cell in the village of Tel, near Nablus, which was in the planning stages of a kidnapping attack targeting a soldier or a civilian from a bus stop. Three suspects were arrested, who were allegedly in touch with Hamas's headquarters in Gaza to receive orders and funding for the attack, designed to secure the release of Palestinian security prisoners from Israeli jails.
Both the PA and Israel continue to observe and sometimes disrupt Hamas's social infrastructure, which spreads its popularity and ideology. These networks include schools, mosques and charity centers, used to keep operatives on the payroll and recruit the masses to the Hamas Islamist cause.
University campuses bristle with Hamas student groups that spread radical ideology and promote recruitment drives. Yet the organization's terrorist cells are routinely detected before they can act.
Dozens of the terror plots are orchestrated by Hamas's overseas shadow government, led by Arouri, who today is believed to reside in Lebanon--under Hezbollah protection--after leaving Turkey.
Hamas's goal of conquering Judea and Samaria provides plenty of motivation for the PA to continue its arrest raids on the terror group, prompting Hamas to threaten to end unification talks in recent weeks.
"I do not believe in a real reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah," said ICT's Karmon. "They could for a short time coordinate stances on the issue of Jerusalem, but [Hamas political chief in Gaza] Yahya Sinwar has already announced that the agreement has collapsed."
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Syrian, Iran-Backed Forces Advance in Town Near Israeli Border -
http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2017/12/24/syrian-iran-backed-forces-advance-town-near-israeli-border/
Syrian army forces backed by Iranian-backed militias pushed deeper into the last rebel-held enclave near a strategic border area with Israel and Lebanon in a new expansion of Tehran's influence in the war-torn country.
The army and the Shi'ite forces advanced east and south of the Sunni-rebel held bastion of Beit Jin backed by some of the heaviest aerial bombing and heavy artillery shelling since a major assault began over two months ago to seize the area, rebels said.
The Syrian army said it had encircled the village of Mughr al Meer at the foothills of Mount Hermon as troops moved towards Beit Jin amid fierce clashes.
The enclave is the last rebel bastion left in the south west of Damascus known as the Western Ghouta that had since last year fallen under government control after months of heavy bombing on civilian areas and years of siege tactics that forced rebels to surrender.
A western intelligence source confirmed rebel reports that Iranian-backed militias including the powerful Lebanese Hezbollah Shi'ite group were playing a major role in the ongoing battles.
"The Iranian backed militias are trying to consolidate their sphere of influence all the way from southwest of Damascus to the Israeli border," said Suhaib al Ruhail, an official from the Liwa al Furqan rebel group that operates in the area.
Worried by Iran's expanding influence in Syria after the defeat of Islamic State, Israel has in the last few weeks stepped up its strikes against suspected Iranian targets inside Syria.
Early this month an Israeli strike on a base near Kiswah, south of Damascus was widely believed to be an Iranian military compound, according to a Western intelligence source
Israel has been lobbying both big powers to deny Iran, Lebanon's Hezbollah and other Shi'ite militias any permanent bases in Syria, and to keep them away from the Golan, as they gain ground while helping Damascus beat back Sunni-led rebels.
The southwest of Syria is part of a de-escalation zone in southern Syria agreed last July between Russia and Washington, the first such understanding between the two powers.
The area has not seen Russian bombing unlike other ceasefire areas in Syria.
Diplomatic sources say several thousand Shi'ite fighters who have been amassing from outside the Quneitra province are pitted against hundreds of Islamist and mainstream Free Syria Army (FSA) rebels closing ranks under the banner of Itihad Quwt Jabal al Sheikh "Union of fighters of Jabal al Sheikh". They are mainly drawn from local fighters from the area.
With the army and Iranian backed offensive widening, the rebels have called on youths to enlist as mosque imams in Beit Jin called on people to take up arms and fight the army.
Rebels still have a sizeable presence in central and southern Quneitra, in the Syrian Golan Heights.
Western diplomatic sources say the crushing of the Sunni rebel presence in areas they have been in since 2013 will allow Lebanon's Hezbollah to open another secure arms supply line from its border in southern Lebanon into Syria.
Since the beginning of the conflict in Syria, Iran has had a growing presence in the country, deploying thousands of Shi'ite fighters who have fought against both mainstream Sunni rebel groups and more militant groups.
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