Tag: military industrial complex

Space Force general says US satellites are attacked on daily basis

A Space Force general said American satellites are attacked by adversaries every day in ways that flirt with “acts of war,” and the US will lose a space arms race if it doesn’t take action.

China and Russia regularly strike US satellites with lasers, radiofrequency jammers, and cyber attacks, Gen. David Thompson told The Washington Post in an op-ed published Tuesday.

“The threats are really growing and expanding every single day. And it’s really an evolution of activity that’s been happening for a long time,” said Gen. Thompson, Vice Chief of Space Operations in the new military branch.

“We’re really at a point now where there’s a whole host of ways that our space systems can be threatened.”

Thompson disclosed a 2019 incident when a Russian satellite flew so close to a US “national security satellite” that authorities believed it could be an offensive. But the spacecraft backed away and tested a projectile, according to the op-ed.

“It maneuvered close, it maneuvered dangerously, it maneuvered threateningly so that they were coming close enough that there was a concern of collision,” he reportedly said. “So clearly, the Russians were sending us a message.”

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Nearly 3/4 of the World’s Dictators Receive US Weapons and Military Assistance

The US supports nearly 75% of the world’s dictators, autocracies, monarchies, military regimes, etc., with weapons, military training and money. Please remember this the next time someone tells you the US should do X or Y because such and such a nation is bad…

Comparing Freedom House’s list of Not Free nations* to FY 2020 US overseas weapons sales, military training and financial assistance**, we find that of the 57 nations considered undemocratic, 42 receive weapons, training and/or money for their military and security services. This means 74% of the non-democratic nations of the world are supported militarily by the US. Interestingly, the remaining 15 nations are nearly all sanctioned. The world’s countries can be divided into two parts: those who buy/receive weapons from the US and those sanctioned. It seems like it’s a pretty simple arrangement.

74% is a slight increase from four years ago when Rich Whitney at Truthout utilized the Freedom House list and compared it to FY 2015 military assistance data. It is likely no surprise to anyone that US support for non-democratic governments increased under President Trump, but, to be fair, it was a minor increase. The hypocrisy and dissonance between stated US support for democracy, liberty and freedom, and how the US government conducts itself exists whether a Democrat or Republican is in the White House.

The list of nations is below. I have listed occupied territories with the nations that are occupying them; so, Gaza and West Bank are under Israel, Western Sahara is under Morocco, Tibet is under China, and Donbas and Crimea are under Russia. Also, please note, this list only includes nations not considered democracies. Nations that are listed as partly free or free by Freedom House, but are clear and gross violators of human rights, and that are recipients of US weapons, military training and military assistance funding, like Columbia, Honduras, India, Pakistan, Philippines, and Ukraine are not included.

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Despite Pledge, Biden Leaves Tap Open, Approving Billions in Arms Deals to Saudi Arabia

“The war in Yemen must end,” declared President Joe Biden in his first major foreign policy speech; “and to underscore our commitment, we are ending all American support for offensive [Saudi] operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.”

Yet studying sales records from the Department of Defense (DoD), MintPress can reveal that less than one year into his presidency, the Biden administration has already approved 20 separate weapons contracts, worth just shy of $1.2 billion, to Saudi Arabia alone. This includes a $100 million shipment of Black Hawk helicopters, support for Apache gunships, and a $78 million deal to buy 36 cruise missiles. A new and controversial $650 million deal announced earlier this month has yet to be finalized but will likely soon follow, boosting sales up to levels equal with the earlier years of the Trump presidency.

The Saudi-led Coalition is once again pummelling Yemen’s capital, Sana’a. Images appear to show U.S.-made aircraft attacking ground targets. This is hardly surprising: American arms sales to Saudi Arabia have long been a point of contention. But this MintPress investigation will reveal the extent to which private American companies are profiting off the infliction of suffering on the Yemeni people.

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Pentagon officials ‘remain baffled by Chinese hypersonic missile technology’ after Beijing tested weapon that could deploy a nuke while travelling at five times the speed of sound

A hypersonic weapon test carried out by China in July featured a missile fired at five times the speed of sound – a technological feat which no other country has demonstrated, according to US intelligence.  

The hypersonic glide vehicle – a spacecraft with the ability to carry a nuclear warhead – fired a missile mid-flight over the South China Sea, catching Pentagon scientists unawares.

Experts at Darpa – the Pentagon’s advanced research agency – are apparently still baffled at how China was able to defy the constraints of physics to fire a weapon from the vehicle travelling at hypersonic speed, the Financial Times reports.

Analysts are also attempting to piece together the purpose of the missile, which was fired with no obvious target before landing into the sea. 

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The Secret Arms Race in Space Revealed

There’s an ongoing ‘arms race’ in space as Russia, China and the United States develop satellites that can counter one another.

While space-to-space weapons have been in development for decades, most famously with the Soviets’ Almaz space stations, Russia and China have recently showcased their capabilities in targeting US satellites.

On Monday, Russia launched a missile into space and destroyed one of its own satellites in a “show of force,” according to AFP.

“It demonstrates that Russia is now developing new weapons systems that can shoot down satellites,” said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

This threat of satellite warfare – in addition to China’s hypersonic missile program – prompted then-President Trump to establish the U.S. Space Force as a branch of the Armed Forces in 2019.

“Both Russia and China have developed ‘space stalker’ satellites that can be manipulated to physically interfere with others, according to Brian Chow, an independent space policy analyst who spent 25 years at the Rand Corp think tank,” reported AFP. “With robotic arms, ‘they can just stalk the opponent satellite and move it somewhere else, or bend an antenna’ to render it useless, said Chow.”

These techniques were developed partially in response to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty which forbade countries from placing “nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit.”

Last year, the US military said that two Russian satellites were “stalking” a US spy satellite in high orbit.

More recently, in August, China tested the limits of the treaty by launching a a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile which reportedly flew in low-orbit space before cruising down to its target.

The test caught the US military by surprise.

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“Revolution In Warfare” – Israel Unveils New Scorpius Electronic Warfare System

Israel has recognized that the modern battlefield will not be entirely fought on air, sea, and space. To better prepare for new domains of warfare, Israel has developed a revolutionary weapon for electromagnetic warfare. 

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), the country’s top aerospace and aviation manufacturer, has developed the Scorpius family of systems that scans a sphere of the operating environment for targets and deploys a narrowly focused beam to interfere with multiple threats across the electromagnetic spectrum. The high-tech weapon is categorized under “soft protection” because it doesn’t cause physical harm. Instead, it disrupts the operation of electromagnetic systems, such as radar, electronic sensors, navigation, and data communications.

Gideon Fustick, Marketing VP EW Group at IAI, told Forbes, “We call it [Scorpius family of systems] ‘soft protection.’ It’s an offensive weapon that doesn’t send out missiles. It’s not a hard-kill system,” adding that “it is very effective in engaging and disabling enemy systems.” 

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‘Cloak and dagger’ military-intelligence outfit at center of US digital vaccine passport push

Described as “the most important organization you’ve never heard of,” MITRE rakes in massive security state contracts to pioneer invasive spy tech. Now it’s at the heart of a campaign to implement digital vaccine passports.

While vaccine passports have been marketed as a boon to public health, promising safety, privacy, and convenience for those who have been vaccinated against Covid-19, the pivotal role a shadowy military-intelligence organization is playing in the push to implement the system in digital form has raised serious civil liberties concerns.

Known as MITRE, the organization is a non-profit corporation led almost entirely by military-intelligence professionals and sustained by sizable contracts with the Department of Defense, FBI, and national security sector.

The effort “to expand QR code vaccine passports beyond states like California and New York” now revolves around a public-private partnership known as the Vaccine Credential Initiative (VCI). And the VCI has reserved an instrumental role in its coalition for MITRE.

Described by Forbes as a “cloak and dagger [research and development] shop” that is “the most important organization you’ve never heard of,” MITRE has developed some of the most invasive surveillance technology in use by US spy agencies today. Among its most novel products is a system built for the FBI which captures individuals’ fingerprints from images posted on social media sites.

MITRE’s own COVID-19 umbrella coalition includes In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Palantir, a scandal-stained private spying firm.

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Ex-SpaceX Engineers Are Building a Cheap, Portable Nuclear Reactor

Nuclear power is going portable in the form of relatively lightweight, cost-effective microreactors. A team of former SpaceX engineers is developing the “world’s first portable, zero-emissions power source” that can bring power to remote areas and also allows for quick installation of new units in populated areas, a press statement revealed.

Last year, the team secured $1.2 million in funding from angel investors for their startup Radiant to help develop its portable nuclear microreactors, which are aimed at both commercial and military applications.  

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US Army to Stage Largest Robot Tank Experiment Ever

The U.S. Army intends to test an entire company of unmanned combat vehicles in simulated battle next year, a wargame that leaders called unprecedented and a big step toward refining the hardware and software that will one day enable wheeled robots to take the battlefield.

Gen. Ross Coffman, the director of Army Futures Command’s Next Generation Combat Cross-Functional Team, told reporters at AUSA this week that the closest thing to the Army’s upcoming robot exercise at Fort Hood, Texas, was last year’s platoon-sized effort at Fort Carson, Colorado.

For that exercise, the Army turned some old M113 armored personnel carriers into robots. “You can imagine that if you can turn a 113, you can turn anything into a robot,” Coffman said. “We learned a ton. There were some clear winners in the technology base. There were some that weren’t as great.” Among the winners was the human-machine interface, he said.

“Now we’re moving it up to company level.” he said. “The lessons learned here, we can now then apply to a brigade and to a division and see how we want to fight with these things in the future. But I know of no country that has done above singular vehicle experiments. So, no antecedent.” 

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