Tag: military industrial complex

The EU’s Planned Transformation Into A Military Union Is A Federalist Power Play

Newly reappointed European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen just announced that “it is now time to build a veritable union of defense”, which Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said represents a marked change in priorities that’ll intersect with NATO’s interests. The EU’s planned transformation into a military union is being sold to the public as a response to the protracted Ukrainian Conflict, but it’s really a federalist power play that’s designed to forever entrench German hegemony over the bloc.

That country has sought to federalize the EU for years already, and despite some notable successes in getting member states to surrender significant parts of their sovereignty to Brussels, it’s thus far failed to yield the expected results. This plan might also become more difficult to implement as two new groups have emerged in the European Parliament since the latest elections: the AfD-led “Europe of Sovereign Nations” and the Hungarian-led “Patriots for Europe”, both of which are fiercely against federalization.

The only possible way to push through this agenda in the face of such growing opposition is to double down on anti-Russian fearmongering in the hopes that member states’ ruling liberal–globalist elites will agree to federalize under the pretext of defending against a supposedly impending invasion. It’s not directly stated, but the subtext is that NATO’s American leader couldn’t be relied upon to defend its allies in that event despite repeatedly reaffirming its commitment to Article 5’s mutual defense obligations.

The abovementioned fears can’t be voiced aloud since the prior expression of such concerns was earlier smeared by the Mainstream Media as so-called “Russian propaganda”, but they might become more strongly implied as the US’ upcoming presidential elections approach. Trump’s reported plan for NATO, which readers can learn more about in detail here, calls for coercing members into raising their defense spending and assuming more responsibility for their immediate security interests vis-à-vis Russia.

The preceding hyperlinked analysis argues that it’s already being partially implemented by the Biden Administration as proven by Germany’s “Fortress Europe” concept, which amounts to it becoming the continent’s military powerhouse with full US support so as to facilitate America’s “Pivot (back) to Asia”. Late January’s “military Schengen”, last month’s “EU defense line”, and this month’s agreement to assume partial responsibility for Poland’s border security are the most significant developments thus far.

The next step is to consolidate Germany’s military-strategic gains over the past half-year through von der Leyen’s call for a military union, which would see German-controlled Brussels organizing the bloc’s military-industrial needs across its 27 members, thus moving them closer to de facto federalization. Upon surrendering sovereignty over military policymaking, which some of them have proudly protected up until now, every other aspect of federalization would quickly fall into place shortly afterwards.

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“Vast DEI Bureaucracy” Hurting U.S. Armed Forces; ASU Study Finds

A new Arizona State University study suggests that Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts in the United States military are ineffective.

The study done by the university’s Center for American Institutions argued that there is a emphasis on training new soldiers about social issues like “unconscious bias” and “intersectionality” in a way the center says runs contrary to typical American ideals. The study examined DEI plan’s in different sector of the military, including DEI office staffing and education at academies like West Point.

“The massive DEI bureaucracy, its training and its pseudo-scientific assessments are at best distractions that absorb valuable time and resources,” the executive summary states. “At worst they communicate the opposite of the military ethos: e.g. that individual demographic differences come before team and mission.”

Donald Critchlow, director of the center, wrote in the introduction it was focused on looking at the influence of Critical Race Theory in the United States Armed Forces training.

“The Commission on Civic Education in the Military began as a project to review civic education in the military. Our research team did not expect to find Critical Race Theory so embedded and pervasive. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs are found throughout the U.S. Armed Forces and our service academies,” Critchlow wrote. “This year long study documents just how pervasive these training programs are in our Armed Forces and Service Academies and that DEI extends well beyond just formal training programs in the military and service academies.”

“The Founders of our nation understood and feared a politicized military. History had shown them that a politicized army easily became the tool of tyranny. The Armed Forces of the United States has proudly upheld this long tradition of separating mission from politics,” he continued.

In terms of recommendations, the study suggests that DEI offices be completely scrapped, but said it may be politically unlikely for the time being.

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U.S. ‘Defense’ Firms Control the U.S. Government.

The United States is safer from a foreign invasion than any other country, not because it spends half of all of the world’s military expenditures, but because it is separated by over 3,000 miles of ocean away from Europe and from Asia, and because its only two bordering countries are entirely friendly nations, Mexico and Canada — so, there’s no way, short of an invasion from thousands of miles away, that America can be militarily attacked. 

The thing that nations are especially concerned about in national-defense matters is avoiding a blitz attack, which is an attack from a location so near to the nation’s central command — near to its Government — so as to be able to behead the Government too fast for the Government to be able to identify that attack and release its retaliatory forces against its enemy. 

This is what the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was all about: JFK needed to prevent placement of Soviet missiles in Cuba only 1,131 miles away from DC, which would have enabled the Soviet Union to blitz-attack America within less than 30 minutes. That’s why JFK threatened to Khrushchev that if they tried that, then America would invade and take over Cuba.

Nowadays the situation is in the reverse direction: Russia’s central command (The Kremlin in Moscow) is only 317 miles away from Ukraine, and on 17 December 2021 Russia formally demanded both America and its NATO to promise that Ukraine won’t be added to NATO and will never host U.S. military; and — entirely unlike what Khrushchev did in 1962 — the U.S. and its NATO responded on 7 January 2022 with a resounding and contemptuous no. Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

What is this actually all about? Empirical studies have shown unequivocally that the U.S. Government is controlled by and represents not its public but only its thousand billionaires plus the politically most active of its centi-millionaires. Each of these individuals is catastrophically wealthy and so can buy enough politicians so that even just the billionaires alone actually do donate more than half of all of the money that funds U.S. political campaigns — the ads, the ‘news’-stories in their ‘news’-media, their think tanks and universities, etc. — in order to drown-out whatever few politicians who simply refuse to be controlled by them.

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Israel to Ukraine to Bulgaria: Which countries receive US military aid?

The United States is poised to restart the shipment of 500-pound bombs to Israel that were held up earlier this year after a pause on their export following the brutal offensive in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, officials told multiple media organisations on Wednesday.

In early May, Biden had paused a single shipment of bombs after Israel ordered the evacuation of Rafah on May 6 and the Israeli military began “targeted” ground operations one day later. Since then, United Nations agencies estimate that about a million Palestinians – many of whom have already been displaced multiple times from other areas of Gaza – have been forced to flee from Rafah.

Throughout Israel’s military campaign on Gaza, the US has not only allowed weapons sales to Israel. It has also provided large amounts of other military aid – both financially and, it is believed, through supportive military operations.

In April, US Congress approved a major round of military aid to both Israel and Ukraine. A total of $95bn included $60bn (63 percent) for Ukraine, $26.4bn (28 percent) for Israel and $8.1bn (9 percent) for the Asia Pacific region relating to a possible threat from China.

The US is the world’s biggest provider of military aid. So, what exactly is military aid and which countries benefit the most?

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Northrop Grumman XRQ-73 SHEPARD Demonstrator Breaks Cover

The SHEPARD vehicle, recently designated the XRQ-73, represents a significant step forward in the evolution of unmanned aerial systems (UAS), leveraging hybrid electric propulsion technologies to enhance performance and operational capabilities.

On Jul. 10, 2024, Northrop Grumman unveiled the design and construction of the Series Hybrid Electric Propulsion Aircraft Demonstration (SHEPARD) vehicle. This uncrewed air system, developed for DARPA, has been officially designated as the XRQ-73 X-plane.

The aircraft in the image released by Northrop Grumman features a sleek, stealthy flying wing design. It has a low-profile fuselage with sharp, angular edges to enhance aerodynamic efficiency and stealth capabilities. The wings are broad and tapered with clipped wingtips, and there are two prominent air inlets located on the upper surface of the fuselage. Between these inlets is a fairing, likely housing critical systems or payloads.

The overall design suggests a focus on minimizing radar and visual signatures, emphasizing its role as an advanced, unmanned aircraft for surveillance and reconnaissance missions.

In fact, the XRQ-73 SHEPARD, built in collaboration with Scaled Composites (a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman), is part of DARPA’s “X-prime” program. It utilizes hybrid electric architecture and advanced component technologies to rapidly develop a new mission-specific aircraft design with unique propulsion architecture and power capabilities for the Department of Defense.

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Problem Plagued Sentinel ICBM Program Will Press Ahead Despite Nearly Doubling In Cost

The U.S. Air Force is pushing ahead with its struggling Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program despite a new projected price tag of nearly $141 billion, close to twice the original estimate, and now years of expected delays. The Pentagon says it has assessed that there are no lower-cost, but similarly capable alternatives to Sentinel, which is expected to replace the existing Minuteman III ICBM as one of the three legs of America’s nuclear deterrent triad.

The Office of the Secretary of Defense announced the results of an official review of the Sentinel program today. By law, per what is commonly referred to as the Nunn-McCurdy Amendment, defense programs that see certain levels of extreme cost growth must be canceled unless various criteria are met. Sentinel’s rising price point triggered a breach of the Nunn-McCurdy statute in January. The Air Force also sacked the top officer in charge of the program last month, but said this was “not directly related to the Nunn-McCurdy review,” according to Defense One.

The Air Force currently has some 400 LGM-30G Minuteman IIIs deployed in silos spread across five states.

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Biodefence: When A Military Coup Took Over Public Health

Lockdown-until-vaccine is not a public health response, it is a response to a bioterror attack, benefiting the biodefense-industrial-complex.

In previous articles, I analyzed government documents showing that the Covid pandemic response in the U.S. was not designed or led by the public health agencies. Rather, it was a biodefense response, led by the National Security Council and FEMA/Department of Homeland Security.

In addition to military/intelligence agencies, the biodefense cartel that ran the Covid response encompassed global pharmaceutical companies enmeshed in public-private partnerships with governments to create and disseminate “countermeasures,” and global NGOs – most notably, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust – who invest in and benefit from all the activities related to pandemic preparedness, first and foremost: vaccines.

The same thing happened in many countries:

  • Between January and mid-March 2020, the public health agencies were handling the coronavirus outbreak as they would any other. They monitored for local outbreaks where people were getting sick with symptoms, told people not to panic, and gave scientifically and epidemiologically sound advice: no masks necessary; wash your hands and stay home if you’re sick.
  • In mid-March there was a complete reversal on everything: suddenly both the political and the public health officials were saying millions would die if we did not shut everything down and wait for vaccines.

In this article I will discuss how this pattern was repeated in the British Covid pandemic response: the national public health agency was replaced at the helm of the response by military/intelligence entities, and the response switched from public health to lockdown-until vaccine – specifically, as a top UK minister testified – the mRNA vaccine.

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That’s militainment! Big Hollywood succumbs to the Pentagon Borg

“The easiest way to inject a propaganda idea into most people’s minds is to let it go through the medium of an entertainment picture when they do not realize that they are being propagandized,” explained Elmer Davis, a renowned CBS broadcaster, who had just been named director of the Office of War Information (OWI), a Pentagon program created on June 13, 1942, six months after Pearl Harbor.

Later in 1953, as the Cold War was in full swing, President Dwight D. Eisenhower commented on the burgeoning partnership between Hollywood and the Pentagon by stating that, “the hand of government must be carefully concealed and […] wholly eliminated,” adding that the engagement should “be done through arrangements with all sorts of privately operated enterprises in the field of entertainment, dramatics, music and so on.”

Thus, the president who coined the term “military industrial complex,” was, in fact, one of the first major proponents of what would later be called the military entertainment complex or the militainment industry.

Today, this militainment industry is thriving. From Top Gun to the Marvel franchise and even shows like Extreme Makeover, the Pentagon has been able to shape the narratives of more than 2,500 movies and TV shows. No one knows this better than Roger Stahl, the University of Georgia’s Communications Studies Department Head, and author of Militainment Inc. With University of Bath lecturer and Workers Party Candidate Matthew Alford, investigative journalist Tom Secker, and others, Stahl created “Theaters of War,” a concise 87-minute documentary in which he methodically dissects our modern militainment industry, showing the behemoth it has become.

Responsible Statecraft talked to Stahl, Alford, and Secker about the ways our TV screens are weaponized through the Military Entertainment Complex’s oversight over and control of Hollywood scripts and production agreements.

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Pentagon chief recommends avoiding Israel-Hezbollah war but sends fighter jets to Israel anyway

For U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin an immediate diplomatic solution is needed to prevent a “costly war” between Israel and Lebanon despite “Hezbollah’s provocations.”

“Diplomacy is by far the best way to prevent more escalation. We’re urgently seeking a diplomatic agreement that restores lasting calm to Israel’s northern border and enables civilians to return safely to their homes on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border,” Austin claimed to reporters during a meeting at the Pentagon with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on June 25.

Hezbollah and Israeli forces have exchanged fire on a near-daily basis since the beginning of the war in Gaza, but escalating attacks over the last several weeks have caused growing unease. And the U.S. official blamed the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah’s threats. “Hezbollah’s provocations threaten to drag the Israeli and Lebanese people into a war that they do not want and such a war would be a catastrophe for Lebanon and it would be devastating for innocent Israeli and Lebanese civilians,” Austin told Gallant. “Another war between Israel and Hezbollah could easily become a regional war with terrible consequences for the Middle East, and so diplomacy is by far the best way to prevent more escalation.”

Previously, Gallant suggested Israel pursue a large-scale war against Hezbollah but during the meeting, he said he was “working closely” with Austin to find a diplomatic resolution. However, they also discussed military “readiness in every possible scenario.” Gallant insisted on the threat of nuclear war with Iran, telling Austin that “time is running out.”

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US provides $2 billion loan to strengthen Polish military

Poland and the United States have inked a direct loan agreement for $2 billion as part of the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program, announced the Polish Ministry of National Defense (MoD) on Monday.

This marks the second such loan granted by the U.S. government to Poland recently. The FMF funds, which are allocated only to select allies with whom the U.S. maintains close defense collaborations, aim to further enhance Poland’s defense capabilities.

According to the Polish MoD, the acquired funds will be used to purchase American defense systems, specifically air and missile defense capabilities, which are considered a priority for the Polish Armed Forces given the current threats.

The statement highlighted the favorable financial terms of the agreement, reflecting the ongoing development of strategic relations between Poland and the U.S.

The U.S. remains Poland’s principal international partner in the modernization of its armed forces, including the acquisition of Patriot and HIMARS missile systems, Abrams tanks, and F-35 aircraft.

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