WORLD AT WAR: 11.13.21 - Turkey: Drifting Further into Russian Orbit

Turkey: Drifting Further into Russian Orbit - by Burak Bekdil- https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17890/turkey-russia-orbit Turkey has been a NATO ally since 1952. On October 6, NATO's childishly naïve secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, praised Turkey as "an important ally [that] played animportant role in defeating Daesh." Both of his suggestions are grossly incorrect: Turkey is becoming an important Russian ally, not a NATO ally, whose irregular militia allies in Syria are the jihadist remnants of Daesh (Islamic State). Like a spurned lover, deeply offended by President Joe Biden's refusal to meet him on the sidelines of September's UN General Assembly meeting in New York, Turkey's IslamistPresident Recep Tayyip Erdoğan rushed to the Black Sea town of Sochi, Russia, on September 29 for a tête-a-tête with Russian President Vladimir Putin. On his way back from New York, Erdoğan told reporters, "the signs are not good in Turkey's relations withthe United States." In an interview with CBS's "Face the Nation," Erdoğan said that the U.S. refusal to deliver F-35 fighter jets that Turkey agreed to purchase and Patriot missiles it wishedto acquire gave Turkey no choice but to turn to Russia for its S-400 anti-aircraft missile system. This dispute has been a point of contention between Turkey and the NATO alliance during both the Trump and Biden administrations. "In the future, nobody will be able to interfere in terms of what kind of defense systems we acquire, from which country at what level. Nobody can interfere with that. Weare the only ones to make such decisions," Erdoğan said. Turkey is planning to buy a second batch of S-400 systems from Russia, and would also demand the U.S. to pay $1.4 billion for the F-35s Turkey did not receive after it was expelled from the U.S.-ledmultinational consortium that builds the aircraft. The stakes are now higher. Erdoğan is gambling by using the Russia card to avoid further U.S. sanctions in his S-400 bid. Meanwhile, the office of the U.S. Senate ForeignRelations Chair Robert Menendez has said that sanctions are mandated by law for "any entity that does significant business with the Russian military or intelligence sectors." The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee wrote on Twitter: "Any new purchasesby Turkey must mean new sanctions," referring to a December 2020 U.S. decision to impose CAATSA (Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) on Turkey for its acquisition of the S-400s. In Sochi, Erdoğan met with Putin only in the presence of interpreters (without an official delegation) defying diplomatic jurisprudence. Both leaders described the meetingas "useful" while smiling to cameras. He said that Turkey and Russia agreed to cooperate on critical defense technologies, including aircraft, engines, submarines and space. In addition, Ankara and Moscow would discuss Russian know-how and construction oftwo more nuclear power plants for Turkey, in addition to a $10 billion nuclear reactor already being built on Turkey's Mediterranean coast. All that strategic planning will further increase NATO ally Turkey's dependence on Russia, also Turkey's biggest supplier of natural gas. "Turkey's turn from the West at large continues uninterrupted," Eugene Kogan, a defense and security analyst based in Tbilisi, Georgia, told Gatestone Institute. "Putin and his administration are well aware of Turkey's weaknesses: a) economy goes from bad to worse; b) the Pandemic is not under control; c) gas prices on increase butRussia is ready to offer a friendly discount to Turkey; d) military acquisitions facing a hostile U.S. Senate." Aykan Erdemir, a former member of Turkey's parliament and now based in Washington, D.C., wrote in an email to the author, that Erdoğan's stance serves as a wake-up callto Biden administration officials. Erdemir wrote: "Erdoğan's statements about purchasing a second batch of the S-400 air defense system from Russia should be a wakeup call for Biden administration officials, who have referredto Turkey as an 'invaluable partner' and an 'important NATO ally' in the last month. "Erdoğan's insistence on a second S-400 batch reflects the impunity the Turkish president has been feeling since he offered in June to assist the Biden administration duringand after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. "Erdoğan's impunity also stems from the delay with which Trump imposed CAATSA sanctions against Ankara during the last month of his presidency only after bipartisan congressionalpressure and his preference for relatively lighter sanctions that have failed to provide any meaningful deterrence. "The Turkish president will continue to play a spoiler role within NATO and provide Putin further opportunities to undermine the transatlantic alliance and its values. "Given the Biden administration's dependence on the Erdoğan government in Afghanistan severely restricts Washington's ability push back against Ankara's transgressions,a bipartisan congressional action is necessary to rebuild U.S. and NATO deterrence against the challenges posed by the Turkish and Russian presidents." Erdoğan is trying to make Turkey a unique example of political oxymoron: An "invaluable" NATO ally also in a deep strategic and military alliance with Russia. He will notstep back from his horse trading with the West, the Russia card in his hand, unless he sees that his love affair with Russia will come with a punishing cost. -------------------------- Subtle Warning? China Builds Mock-Ups of US Naval Vessels inMissile Testing � PNW Staff - https://www.prophecynewswatch.com/article.cfm?recent_news_id=5064 Communist China has constructed full-scale sized mockups of major U.S. warships, including an aircraft carrier, to use at a new target range complex as tensions betweenthe U.S. and China continue to rise amid geopolitical issues in the South China Sea Satellite images show the Chinese military erected the mock-ups on 6-meter-wide rail tracks which would allow the mock-ups to be moved, simulating moving vessels. The independent U.S. Naval Institute(USNI) said on its website that the mock-ups of US ships were part of a new target range developed by the People's Liberation Army. "This new range shows that China continues to focus on anti-carrier capabilities, with an emphasis on US Navy warships," USNI reported. China now has the world's largest navy and is preparing to launch a new high-tech aircraft carrier by February, the Pentagon has also revealed. Beijing has 'numerically the largest navy in the world with an overall battle force of approximately 355 ships and submarines, with expectations to deploy 460 warships bythe end of the decade,' the Defense Department said last Wednesday in its annual report on China. That compares with 296 warships at the US Navy's disposal, 69 vessels operated by the Royal Navy and 295 boats deployed by the Russian Navy. Beijing is expected to add a third aircraft carrier in early 2022, dubbed Type-003, with satellite images from the shipyard published today indicating that it will rivalthe American super carriers. China's navy and coast guard are also adding new vessels at a record pace, concentrating them in the South China Sea, the strategic waterway that China claims virtuallyin its entirety. While the US Navy remains predominant, its resources are divided between the Indo-Pacific, the Persian Gulf, the Mediterranean and other regions where American interestslie. Beijing is investing heavily not just in conventional warfare but also 'focusing on information, cyber, and space and counterspace operations,' the report states. Pentagon press secretary John F. Kirby responded to the report at a press conference on Monday. "What we're concerned about ... is the increasing intimidation and coercive behavior of the Chinese military in the Indo-Pacific, and also the coercive tactics they're using,even using economic tools around the world to bend other nations to their will or to their view of what's in their best interest," Kirby said. "We're focused on developing the capabilities, the operational concepts, making sure we have the resources and the right strategy in place so that we can deal with Chinaas the No. 1 pacing challenge." China's military is a source of growing concern. The Pentagon released a report this month claiming that China is expanding its nuclear force much faster than predictedjust a year ago. This nuclear program appears designed to enable Beijing to match or surpass U.S. global power by mid-century, the report said. "The PLA's evolving capabilities and concepts continue to strengthen China's ability to 'fight and win wars' against a 'strong enemy' -- a likely euphemism for the UnitedStates," the report said. In 2020 alone, the People's Liberation Army launched more than 250 ballistic missiles for testing and training -- "more than the rest of the world combined," according tothe Pentagon. In August 2020, China launched a series of tests involving DF-21D and DF-26 missiles which are touted in the Chinese media as 'aircraft carrier killers.' Last month, China surprised US military experts when it tested a hypersonic missile that is capable of carrying a nuclear payload and potentially has a range of some 25,000miles and can operate in space. It means the missile can theoretically hit anywhere on Earth with almost no way to stop it. Mounting concern about China's nuclear capabilities comes as Beijing continues to build up its conventional military forces and engages in increasingly assertive militaryactivity near Taiwan. Some experts are concerned that the fiasco in Afghanistan has bolstered China's timeline for invasion of the island nation. Beijing's mouthpiece media has been warning that it is 'only a matter of time' before the island falls into their hands and that World War Three could be triggered 'at anytime'. Satellite images recently showed how China has upgraded military air bases close to Taiwan, in the latest hint at potential invasion plans. The images come after the People'sLiberation Army air force launched 149 sorties into Taiwanese air defense identification zone (ADIZ) last month - a record number. With the threat of hypersonic missiles now looming over any potential invasion, US plans to aid Taiwan could come at great cost. -------------------------------- Echoes Of Ezekiel 38 - 2022 To Be Pivotal Year in Israel/Iran Conflict � Yaakov Lappin - https://www.prophecynewswatch.com/article.cfm?recent_news_id=5067 The year 2022 is set to be the year that the Israeli Air Forces places its long-range strike capabilities against Iran's nuclear program sites at the top of its prioritylist. Recent years have seen the IAF focus on its ability to strike regional Iranian entrenchment activities, particularly in Syria, as well as prepare attack plans against Hezbollahin Lebanon based on the concept of unleashing of thousands of guided munitions per day, while also engaging in frequent Gaza escalations. Now, however, the IAF's planners have set their sights on targets Iranian soil. Iran's nuclear sites--the most famous of which are the Natanz and Fordow uranium enrichment sites--are not only far away but also heavily fortified by advanced air-defensesystems. In Fordow's case, the facility is built deep inside a mountain. Assessing the progress being made by Iran's nuclear program is complex. On the one hand, the threshold for triggering an attack has obviously not been triggered, and forits part, Iran has announced a return to nuclear talks in Vienna with the United States and world powers. But it's not yet clear whether those talks will lead to an actual agreement. Even if they do, a return to the 2015 nuclear deal--the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)--wouldrepresent a very poor development for the region due to its short-term sunset clauses built into the arrangement, which would soon expire and pave the path for Iran to become a nuclear threshold state with full international legitimacy. A better, longer deal does not seem to be on the table at this stage. While Iran appears to have frozen parts of its nuclear infrastructure that it would need to break through to the nuclear weapon--developing an explosive mechanism and workingto place that mechanism on a missile warhead--it has made alarming progress on the most challenging aspect of building a nuclear weapon: amassing sufficient fissile material. Israel's sped-up military preparations are therefore a direct reflection of Iran's own speeding up of its nuclear program. Iran enriched more than 120 kilograms of uraniumto the 20 percent level in October, according to the IAEA--a major jump from the 84 kilograms that Iran had previously enriched a month earlier. Iran is also openly enriching other, albeit smaller quantities of uranium to the 60 percent level, something nonon-nuclear state would do. Assessments of how long Iran would need to break through to an actual weapon range from between 18 months to two years. That's not a long time in strategic terms. 'We are working on these things' The original 2015 nuclear deal, despite its many holes, did temporarily delay Iran's nuclear progress, allowing the IAF to invest its resources in other missions and plans. In 2018, after the Trump administration withdrew from the nuclear deal and placed crippling sanctions on Iran, Tehran faced severe economic crises. Nevertheless, the regimebegan speeding up its uranium-enrichment activities in order to, as former Israeli National Security Adviser Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror put it, "make clear to the world what the cost of the U.S.'s exit from the agreement will be." Now, as the Biden administration seeks to draw Iran back to that very same deal, any delay that the JCPOA would cause Iran's nuclear program would be very short-lived. Alternatively,Iran, which has found new ways to export its oil around the world and ways to survive sanctions, could be tempted to do away with any return to an agreement and secure its status as a breakout state instead. One must hope, therefore, that the United States and Israel are quietly hammering out a side deal between them that would stipulate what actions would be taken if Iran approachesthe breakout zone, in addition to ensuring that no one gets in Israel's way should the hour arise for confrontation. When IAF planners look at the challenge of reaching Iran, they must consider an enormous undertaking, requiring the most detailed planning, intelligence, ammunition selections,aerial platforms and refueling capabilities. There is no resemblance between such an operation and a short-range operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Such preparations take considerable time. Israel's defense establishment is increasingly vocal about those preparations. In September, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, told Walla: "Wehave greatly sped up our preparations for activities in Iran." He added that a "substantial part of the enlarged defense budget, as just recently summarized, is earmarked for this. This is highly complex work, requiring a great dealof intelligence and many operational capabilities. It requires many more ammunitions. We are working on these things." These comments reflect the true scope of the force build-up program needed specifically for a strike mission on Iran's nuclear program. They also suggest that whatever plansthe IAF had in place for such a mission in 2021 will be different from the plans that will be put in place in 2022. Such strategizing, in and of itself, isn't new. Israel first began developing its military capabilities for stopping Iran's nuclear program in 2004--hasn't stopped. As timegoes by, the chances of Israel needing to deploy these capabilities appear to have risen, even if there is no immediate trigger for such action tomorrow. The year 2022, with Iran's progress, and pending decision on whether or not to engage in diplomacy, could prove to be a critical junction. 'A military option is on the table' To be sure, a strike would represent the very last resort from Israel's perspective. Not least of which, this is due to the fact that a strike could see Iran quickly activateHezbollah--its heavily armed proxy in Lebanon that is 20 times more powerful today than it was on the eve of the 2006 Second Lebanon War. Hezbollah's arsenal of more than 150,000 surface-to-surface projectiles is designed to deter Israel from launching thevery strike for which the IAF is currently preparing contingencies. Iran's Shi'ite proxies in Syria and Iraq could also join the fray after an attack, setting the scene for a major Mideast war. Such a scenario is not inevitable and the natureof warfare is unpredictable, but it must be factored into any strike contingency. The enlarged Israeli defense budget for the year 2021--some 62.3 billion shekels (and 60 billion shekels for 2022)--represents a sizable increase from 2020's 57.5 billionshekels expenditure on defense. Ultimately, it is vital that Iran understands that a military option is on the table, and since the American strategic focus has clearly shifted to the Far East, it fallsto Israel to carry out this function. In the past, Iran has taken military threats to its nuclear sites seriously, as is visible in the length that the Islamic Republic has gone to in protecting its nuclearinfrastructure with air-defense systems and installing parts of it underground. In 2003, when Iran saw American forces on its borders in Afghanistan and Iraq, it froze its nuclear program to avoid military action. Today, however, Iran's Supreme Leader,Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, does not appear to be taking military threats from anyone very seriously. The placing of a credible and imminent military threat is therefore critical at this junction. For Israel, this means also having to be ready for the full-scale conflict that could follow with Iran's proxies such a strike. Plans by Israel to unleash devastating firepower on Hezbollah--combined with a rapid ground offensive--would mean that it would take Lebanon years to recover from such awar. The timing of these potential scenarios is not around the corner, but their relevancy is growing with time. At the tactical level, it appears as if Israel's growing fleet of F-35 fighter jets will have leading roles in such scenarios with their stealth capabilities, and abilityto infiltrate deep into enemy air space and gather enormous amounts of intelligence, which can be sent back to fourth-generation F-15 and F-16 fighter jets to attack. In some ways, the IAF is still coming to terms with the full range of capabilities possessed by the F-35 and how these can be combined with roles for F-16 and F-15 jets,as well as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). 'Their dream of regional hegemony and beyond' There are some who question whether it is even possible to really stop Iran on its patient, calculated nuclear march. Some argue that even if Iran becomes armed with nuclearweapons, it would not use them against Israel, and that the threat of retaliation and global reaction would kick in. Such arguments are effectively dealt with by an examination of Iran's likely strategy once it becomes nuclear; this would probably center on providing a nuclear umbrellafor its ever-more confident proxies in the Middle East. As Amidror, the former national security adviser, recently stated in a paper for the IDF's Dado think tank, "even if the Iranians do not use nuclear weapons to destroy Israel,"the nuclear umbrella in their possession "would make it easier for them to realize their dream of regional hegemony and beyond. With nuclear weapons in their hands, they could act against regional states, foremost among them, Israel, with far less concernregarding possible responses. It is fair to assume that they believe that when they possess nuclear weapons, Israel, too, will be deterred from acting against Iranian interests, even if Iran's effortswill go towards nourishing their stranglehold mechanism that they wish to place around the Jewish state in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq." Amidror warned that nuclear weapons would make Iran feel immune enough to destabilize the Middle East with much greater intensity than it does today, without having to worryabout American retaliation or the threat of a Libya-style war for regime change. VISIT: PROPHECY WATCHER WEEKLY NEWS: HTTP://PROPHECY-WATCHER-WEEKLY-NEWS.BLOGSPOT.COM