Hezbollah & Israel Step Up Preparations For Coming Conflict - By Yaakov Lappin -
The arms race underway between Israel and Iranian-backed Hezbollah has seen both sides study one another and build up their military power to unprecedented levels.
The Shi'ite armed force, which dominates Lebanon and which has played a key role in the victory of the Bashar Assad regime in Syria, continues to view Israel as its prime enemy. With the assistance of its Iranian patron, it is building an arsenal of rockets and missiles that is larger than most NATO armies.
Israel has spent years building up new military capabilities, including ground offensive abilities that are state-of-the-art, in addition to world-leading intelligence and unrivalled air power.
Throughout this time, Israel has also sought to prevent the outbreak of a third Lebanon war for as long as possible. Hezbollah, for its own reasons, seems to share that goal; still, that has not stopped it from ambitiously preparing for future conflict.
Recent developments have indicated that Israel may not be willing to contain the current situation indefinitely, and watch Iran and Hezbollah boost their threat to Israeli cities. It appears as if the Israeli defense establishment has been using international media to send warnings to Hezbollah and Iran regarding their force build-up in Lebanon.
A Fox News report in recent days quoted "Western sources" as saying that Iran has stepped up deliveries of satellite navigation kits to Hezbollah's rockets, which would enable them to become guided missiles.
The report provided a detailed account of how an Iranian Fars Air Qeshm aircraft flew from Tehran to Damascus, and then to Beirut, reportedly dropping off the dangerous missile-guidance cargo.
Days later, on Oct. 22, a senior military officer from the Israel Defense Forces' Northern Command exposed a new Hezbollah forward position on the Lebanese-Israeli border, which was disguised as a structure used by environmental protection activists.
"This is a breach of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701," the officer said, in reference to a resolution that bans armed forces other than the official Lebanese Armed Forces from deploying in southern Lebanon.
The new intelligence-gathering post is part of "Hezbollah's tactical military activities in south Lebanon that are being conducted in the last few years," the officer stated.
"What we've seen ... is Hezbollah using the civilian front and working in civilian uniforms in south Lebanon to order to act in the region with impunity," he added. "We see them gathering intelligence on IDF activity, watching Israeli communities close to the Blue Line, which is the border between Israel and Lebanon, preparing for attacks against the IDF, and against Israeli civilians in the Galilee," the officer said.
"We've seen in the last few years that Hezbollah started to build these observation posts under the cover of a supposed environmental association, called 'Green Without Borders,' " he added. "This NGO is not really concerned with planting trees. It is a front used by Hezbollah to continue its military build-up in south Lebanon."
The latest Hezbollah position was built facing the Israeli kibbutz of Misgav Am, which the Hezbollah operatives photographed, while also conducting surveillance on IDF activity. Such activities by trained Hezbollah operatives are part of the organization's preparations of attacks on Israel, according to the officer.
Israel expects such posts to be dismantled, he added. "We urge UNIFIL [the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon] to live up to their mandate and to work against Hezbollah's build-up in south Lebanon," the officer said.
Hezbollah preparing 'for the day it receives the order'
Professor Uzi Rabi, director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, told JNS on Thursday that "as time goes by, the threat grows, due to the simple reason that technology is improving."
"At the same time," he added, "this is a threat that Israel can still contain through its means. But there is no doubt that there is a trend here that is concerning in the medium and long term."
Dr. Eitan Shamir, former head of the National Security Doctrine Department in Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs, assessed that neither Israel nor Hezbollah have a desire to enter into a war, which would cause severe damage to both sides that would be "on the verge of being intolerable."
Shamir, an expert on insurgencies and combat doctrine, and a researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, said that Hezbollah's role "as an Iranian arm is to be ready for the day it receives the order and has therefore not gone to war."
Hezbollah is still involved in the Syrian front and faces domestic Lebanese constraints, said Shamir. "Israel is always interested in distancing, as far as possible, the time of the next war," he added.
While it is difficult to know with certainty whether Israel is close to reaching a point when it feels that it has no choice but to launch a preventative attack, it does not appear to have reached such a junction, argued Shamir. "However, the aim of the latest exposures is to issue an alert, saying that we may well reach this point--and that it is not at all theoretical," he stated.
Shamir defined this red line as a certain enemy capability that, once reached, "will push Israel into the corner. I don't believe we are there, but we are moving in that direction."
Russia & China Warn War With The United States Is Coming - By Michael Snyder -
Could it be possible that the U.S. is heading for a major war? If you ask most Americans that question, they will look at you like you are crazy. For most people in this country, war with either Russia or China is not something to even be remotely concerned about. But the Russians and the Chinese both see things very differently.
As you will see below, Russia and China both seem to be under the impression that war with the United States is coming, and they are both rapidly preparing for such a conflict.
Let's start with Russia. After repeatedly slapping them with sanctions, endlessly demonizing their leaders and blaming them for just about every problem that you can imagine, our relationship with Russia is about the worst that it has ever been.
And when the Trump administration announced that it was withdrawing from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, that pushed things to a new low. In the aftermath of that announcement, Russian official Andrei Belousov boldly declared that "Russia is preparing for war"...
He said: "Here recently at the meeting, the United States said that Russia is preparing for war.
"Yes, Russia is preparing for war, I have confirmed it.
"We are preparing to defend our homeland, our territorial integrity, our principles, our values, our people - we are preparing for such a war."
Here in the United States, there is very little talk of a potential war with Russia in the mainstream media, but in Russia things are very different. Russian news outlets are constantly addressing escalating tensions with the United States, and the Russian government has been adding fuel to that fire. For example, the Russian government recently released a video of a mock nuclear strike against their "enemies"...
Russian submarines have recently carried out a mock nuclear attack against their "enemies." The Russian government has released footage of the atomic strike and it is sparking fears that the third world war is quickly approaching.
The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) has published shocking videos that show a range of nuclear missile drills including a submarine carrying out a mock atomic strike. These videos are the latest in a series of escalating war-games ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to The Express UK.
I'll give you just one guess as to who the primary enemy in that drill was.
And what Russian President Vladimir Putin recently told the press about a potential nuclear war was extremely chilling...
If any nation decides to attack Russia with nuclear weapons, it may end life on Earth; but unlike the aggressors, the Russians are sure to go to heaven, President Vladimir Putin has said.
"Any aggressor should know that retribution will be inevitable and he will be destroyed. And since we will be the victims of his aggression, we will be going to heaven as martyrs. They will simply drop dead, won't even have time to repent," Putin said during a session of the Valdai Club in Sochi.
Under normal circumstances, Putin would never talk like that.
But these are not normal times.
Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping is ordering his military to focus on "preparations for fighting a war"...
China's President Xi Jinping ordered the military region responsible for monitoring the South China Sea and Taiwan to "assess the situation it is facing and boost its capabilities so it can handle any emergency" as tensions continue to mount over the future of the South China Sea and Taiwan, while diplomatic relations between Washington and Beijing hit rock bottom.
The Southern Theatre Command has had to bear a "heavy military responsibility" in recent years, state broadcaster CCTV quoted Xi as saying during an inspection tour made on Thursday as part of his visit to Guangdong province.
"It's necessary to strengthen the mission ... and concentrate preparations for fighting a war," Xi said. "We need to take all complex situations into consideration and make emergency plans accordingly. "We have to step up combat readiness exercises, joint exercises and confrontational exercises to enhance servicemen's capabilities and preparation for war" the president-for-life added.
So who are the Chinese concerned that they may be fighting against?
Needless to say, the United States is at the top of the list...
The president instructed the military to ramp-up opposition to 'freedom of navigation' exercises being undertaken by the US, Australia, France, the UK, Japan and others through the waterway through which arterial shipping lanes have grown since the end of World War II.
Tensions over the South China Sea have been increasing for several years, and starting a trade war with China in 2018 has certainly not helped things.
At this point, even many U.S. analysts can see the writing on the wall. For instance, just consider what Harvard Professor Graham Allison recently told Steve LeVine...
He said, if history holds, the U.S. and China appeared headed toward war.
Over the weekend, I asked him for an update -- specifically whether the danger of the two going to war seems to have risen.
"Yes," he responded. The chance of war is still less than 50%, but "is real -- and much more likely than is generally recognized."
Of course we didn't get to this point overnight. Tensions with Russia and China have been simmering for quite a while, and both of those nations have been rapidly modernizing their military forces. For much more on this, please see my recent article entitled "Russia And China Are Developing Impressive New Weapons Systems As They Prepare For War Against The United States".
Sadly, the vast majority of the U.S. population is utterly clueless about these things.
But those that are serving in the military have a much better understanding, and one recent survey found that about half of them expect the U.S. to be "drawn into a new war within the next year"...
Nearly half of all current military troops believe the United States will be drawn into a major war soon, a jarring rise in anxiety among service members worried about global instability in general and Russia and China in particular, according to a new Military Times poll of active-duty troops.
About 46 percent of troops who responded to the anonymous survey of currently serving Military Times readers said they believe the U.S. will be drawn into a new war within the next year. That's a jarring increase from only about 5 percent who said the same thing in a similar poll conducted in September 2017.
Those numbers are jarring.
Some major stuff must be going on behind the scenes in order to go from 5 percent to 46 percent in a single year.
We truly are living in apocalyptic times, and our world seems to be getting more unstable with each passing day.
We should hope for peace, but throughout human history peace has never lasted for long. Major global powers continue to edge closer and closer to conflict, and that is a very dangerous game to be playing.
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