Tag: perpetual war

Syria: Will the United States Try to Stop Israeli Militarism in the Middle East?

For the past several decades, the United States and Israel have tried to isolate Syria in the Middle East.  Only U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, after the October War in 1973, tried and succeeded in bringing Syria into the step-by-step peace process negotiations with Israel.  Since then, however, U.S. efforts to negotiate a peace such as the Reagan plan in 1982 or the unsuccessful efforts to arrange an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon have ignored any role for Syria.  Currently, U.S. tolerance of Israeli military power against Syria complicates the task of reducing the violence and allowing the Syrian rebels to have the time and space to establish a stable government in Damascus.

For most of its history, Syrian authority has been marked by instability due to authoritarian leadership and a diverse population.  The fragmented nature of Syrian society; the absence of a strong national identity; and the debilitating conflict with Israel have contributed to weak governance.  Any Syrian government, particularly the current one that tries to take hold after 14 years of confrontation, will face a difficult geopolitical environment that limits policy options; inhibits risk-taking; and compromises central authority.  The various ethnic divisions, even among the majority Sunni Moslems, will make it difficult to achieve political and economic cohesion.

One hundred years ago, the wife of the British consul described inter-communal relations in a way that still fits: “They hate one another.  The Sunnis excommunicate the Shias, and both hate the Druze; all detest the Alawites; the Maronites do not love anybody but themselves are duly abhorred by all; the Greek Orthodox abominate the Greek Catholics and the Latins; and all despise the Jews.”  The Alawites. who have politically dominated the country in recent times, were singled out for persecution in the past by the Sunni majority,  Most of the population in Syria is Moslem, but 20 percent of the Moslems belong to various schismatic sects.

Today, Syria is in predictable chaos, and the presence of numerous foreign powers adds to the conflict.  Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have made it particularly difficult for the new regime by launching hundreds of air strikes against Syria, and seizing territory beyond the Golan Heights that provided a sightline to Damascus.  Former Israeli Air Force officers commented on social media that these attacks were carried out as part of an operation based on plans that were drawn up years ago.

Turkey has backed various Syrian rebel groups along the Syrian-Turkish border, and plans to continue the fight against Syrian Kurds based in northeastern Syria, where the Kurds have support from nearly 1,000 U.S. military personnel.  Among the foreign powers in Syria, Turkey has the greatest access and influence with the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which led the fight against former president Bahshar al-Assad.

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Rep. Michael McCaul Says Drones Seen Flying Over US Military Sites are ‘Adversarial’ and Likely Coming from Communist China

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) has raised alarms over unidentified drones observed near U.S. military installations, suggesting they may be adversarial and likely of Chinese origin.

The Gateway Pundit previously reported that Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, one of America’s most vital military installations, faced an unsettling breach of its airspace over the weekend, reigniting concerns about the security of critical U.S. defense facilities.

Mysterious drones buzzed over the Ohio base, forcing the temporary closure of its Class Delta airspace late Friday night and into Saturday morning.

According to base spokesman Bob Purtiman, the origin of the drones remains unidentified, and their intentions are officially deemed “not malicious.”

“I can confirm small aerial systems were spotted over Wright Patterson between Friday night and Saturday morning,” base spokesman Bob Purtiman told The War Zone on Sunday.

“Today leaders have determined that they did not impact base residents, facilities, or assets. The Air Force is taking all appropriate measures to safeguard our installations and residents,” he added.

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Putin And Defense Minister Belousov – Russia Is Preparing For War

For the first time, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Andrei Belousov have publicly stated Russia is likely to go to war with NATO in the next decade.

Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Andrei Belousov delivered their end-of-year report to a giant defense ministry conference on Monday, hailing the state of affairs at the front and in the rear. They talked about the latest successes in the Ukraine invasion, the increase in military spending and Russia’s preparations for conflict with NATO.

2024 was “a landmark year for achieving the goals” of the war in Ukraine, Putin stated, saying the Russian army had captured 189 settlements since January. According to Belousov, Ukrainian forces retain control of under 1% of the territory of the self-styled Luhansk People’s Republic, and 25-30% of the Donetsk People’s Republic, and the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson Regions — all parts of Ukraine that Russia claims to have annexed, reported Russian independent news outlet The Bell.

According to Putin, the breakthrough on the front came thanks to people voluntarily signing up to fight. Some 430,000 soldiers have been recruited so far this year, compared with 300,000 in 2023. Amid massive bonuses and salaries, more than 1,000 people are signing up to join the army every day.

Putin announced that the hypersonic Oreshnik intermediate-range missile system would go into serial production in the near future, despite having said at a meeting with Russia’s allies on Nov. 28 that it was already in full swing. And in the third quarter of 2025, Russia should have its own new specialized drone unit, mirroring a decision made by Ukraine back at the start of the year. 

Both Putin and Belousov also spoke of the prospect of direct conflict with the West. Putin complained that Russia was “being pushed to our red lines” while Belousov said that preparations for a conflict with NATO “in the next decade” were part of the defense ministry’s tasks and blamed NATO statements at its recent July summit for the increased threat. At the summit the military alliance’s final declaration described Russia as “the most significant and direct threat” to its members, which requires the strengthening and modernizing of its nuclear potential.

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Iran: America’s Next War Of Choice

Peace is not at hand in the Middle East, and Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu remains determined to expand the war. Syria’s de facto partition into Israeli and Turkish territories is the prelude to wider war with Iran. As the Times of Israel reported last week, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) has “continued to increase its readiness and preparations” for “potential strikes in Iran.”

Netanyahu’s top priority is the destruction of Iran before Russia wraps up its victory in Ukraine and Syria becomes a new battleground for Turks and Israelis. It’s not simply the end of Washington’s “rules-based international order.” It’s the onset of chaos. Israeli forces and Turkish auxiliaries (i.e. the Islamist terrorists who sacked Syria) are already staring at each other across a demarcation line that runs east–west just south of Damascus. Netanyahu harbors no illusions about the conflict between Ankara’s long-term strategic aims in the region and Jerusalem’s determination to claim the Syrian spoils of war. 

In addition to serious financial trouble and societal discontent on the home front, President-elect Donald Trump now confronts the dangerous distraction of wars he did not start, wars that will bring his administration and his country no strategic benefit. America’s underwriting of Netanyahu’s expanding war in the Middle East will endanger U.S. national security and guarantee that Washington, its armed forces, and the U.S. economy will be hostage to whatever strategic direction Netanyahu decides to take. 

Starting the war sooner, rather than later, is critical for Netanyahu. War with Iran presents Trump with a strategic fait accompli. In case Trump decides to distance the United States from another bloodbath in the Middle East, Israel’s ongoing conflict with Iran and Turkey’s potential confrontation with Israel will make disengagement impossible.

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NATO State Warns Against Western Troops In Ukraine: “Discussion Has Gone Off The Rails”

One of NATO’s two newest members, Finland, is urging caution as some European leaders are considering a negotiated end to the Ukraine war which would involve sending Western peacekeeping forces. The incoming Trump administration is reportedly keen on the idea.

President of Finland Alexander Stubb issued a warning Tuesday before a defense cooperation summit in Tallinn, saying “We should not get ahead of ourselves” on the issue of a future peacekeeping mission, cited in Finnish outlet Yle.

His main criticism focused on the huge numbers of European troops that such a mission would require. “The operation cannot be launched on a shaky foundation,” he continued, explaining that an adequate peacekeeping force would have to have at least 150,000 soldiers on the ground.

“In rotation, that means three times that, or 450,000 peacekeepers per year. So perhaps this discussion has gone off the rails, so to speak,” he emphasized.

Stubb offered that instead of peacekeeping forces, Kiev should have security guarantees, and that should be the central driver of the discussion over future peace negotiations.

The past several months have seen leading NATO countries revive the idea of sending Western troops to Ukraine. Whether in a ‘peacekeeping’ capacity or not, the Kremlin would see this as a massive escalation and has threatened war with the west.

Putin has made it clear that Russia will not tolerate NATO regular forces right on its border. Already this week Putin has said the West is going ‘beyond’ Russia’s stated red lines.

As the Biden administration has scrambled to try and build Kiev’s leverage on the battlefield prior to the Trump administration taking office, it recently greenlighted long-range missile attacks using ATACMS systems on Russia. 

Moscow has frequently said it is open to peace negotiations with Ukraine, but at this point is very unlikely to sign off on any plan which would see a European troop large deployment in any capacity.

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Syrian ‘Moderate Rebel’ Removes ISIS Patch At Prompting Of American Journalist

Video footage has recently emerged taken by journalist James Longman advising ‘rebels’ in Syria that the ISIS logo on their uniforms will be misunderstood by Western audiences. Longman, who is ABC News’ Chief International Correspondent, demonstrates a trend of American journalists going to war zones to essentially coach combatants on how to better present themselves to the outside world. Mainstream media has for many years pushed the myth of “moderate rebels” in Syria seeking to topple Assad, which they finally did this month.

One of the militants, who might be a member of the US-designated terror group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham or possibly another hardline Islamist faction, attempts to claim to the US journalist that the emblem does not represent ISIS. Still, the man wearing the ISIS patch seems to take the hint and dutifully removes it for the camera. They swear to ABC’s Longman that they are not Daesh (or ISIS), even while openly sporting its symbols.

Having examined the disturbing video, Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada – who speaks Arabic – has issued the following reaction: “I’ve seen this video circulating today, along with the claim that James Longman told the fighter to remove the ISIS patch. He does not do that in this video clip. But it’s not much of a ‘confrontation’ either. And however Longman intended it, the fighters appear to interpret his comments as friendly advice on how to present themselves and in fact remove the patch. Understandable that this is reminding people of how Western media colluded in the rebranding of the Azov Battallion in Ukraine that they had been accurately describing as hardcore Nazis just months earlier.”

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European ‘peacekeepers’ in Ukraine? A horrible idea.

President-elect Trump is reportedly advancing the idea that a large and heavily armed peacekeeping force from Europe (but including NATO members) could be introduced into Ukraine as part of a peace settlement there. It is important that this very ill-thought-out idea be shot down before it does serious damage to the prospects for an early peace and causes Ukraine still further human, economic and territorial loss.

According to the Wall Street Journal and Le Monde, this idea first emerged in private talks between French and British officials in November. It was discussed on Thursday by NATO foreign ministers in Brussels. Trump made the suggestion to French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a meeting in Paris on December 7.

Macron then traveled to Warsaw to discuss a plan for 40,000 heavily armed European “peacekeepers” with the Polish government whose officials, however, have so far given it a cool public response. In the words of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk: “To cut off speculation about the potential presence of this or that country in Ukraine after reaching a ceasefire, … decisions concerning Poland will be made in Warsaw and only in Warsaw. At the moment we’re not planning such activities.”

Friedrich Merz of the German Christian Democrats, almost certain to be chancellor after the elections due in February, has also distanced himself from the idea.

On the face of it, this idea might seem to reconcile several mutually contradictory pressures on the Ukrainian peace process: The Russian demand for a treaty that will permanently bar Ukraine from NATO membership; the Ukrainian demand for Western guarantees against future Russian aggression; Trump’s determination not to put U.S. troops on the ground or make additional and permanent U.S. commitments to Ukraine; and the real need for a substantial international force to patrol an armistice line.

There is just one problem: According to every Russian official and expert with whom my colleagues and I have spoken (most recently on Thursday), the idea of Western troops in Ukraine is just as unacceptable to the Russian government and establishment as NATO membership for Ukraine itself. Indeed, the Russians see no essential difference between the two.

Seen from Moscow, such a Western “peacekeeping force” would be simply a NATO advance guard that would provide cover for the gradual introduction of more and more NATO forces. Indeed, while President Zelensky has said that Ukraine “may consider” the idea of peacekeepers, it would only do so if it is also given a clear timeline for future NATO membership. If this proposal is put forward by General Kellogg, President-elect Trump’s choice as his Ukraine envoy, in negotiations, the Russian side will therefore reject it out of hand; and if it is insisted on, the talks will fail.

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Ukraine Assassinates Russian Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Chief, General Kirillov, in Moscow Bomb Blast in Major Escalation

The Kiev regime once again resorts to ‘asymmetrical tactics’ (a.k.a. terrorism) and assassinates a top Russian General, in a move that is sure to generate a considerable escalation and also certain retaliation by the Russians against top Ukrainian officials.

On today’s early morning (17), an improvised explosive device (IED) was detonated on Moscow’s Ryazansky Prospekt.

The massive, deadly blast killed high profile Russian chemical defense chief General Igor Kirillov.

Sputnik reported on Telegram:

“The Russian Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case into the murder of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, head of the Troops of Radiological, Chemical, and Biological Defense of the Russian Armed Forces, and his assistant.

The IED was planted on an electric scooter positioned at the entrance of a residential building in southeast Moscow.”

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Poland Makes Firearms Training Mandatory for Primary School Students

As American classrooms obsess over pronoun usage and gender identity debates, Poland is taking a drastically different approach: preparing its children to face real-world threats.

The Polish government has now made firearms training a mandatory part of primary school education, prioritizing national security and self-reliance over a woke agenda.

At schools like the Nicholas Cernus Primary School in Skaryszew, students as young as 13 and 14 are learning to handle rifles and pistols under the supervision of trained professionals.

Instead of live ammunition, students train using ball guns, air guns, small arms replicas, and virtual or laser-based shooting systems, where a green light indicates a successful hit, according to The Express.

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The Long Train of Abuses that Culminated in the Ukraine War

“A fox knows many things, but a hedgehog knows one big thing.” Scott Horton is the liberty movement’s foreign policy hedgehog, endeavoring to convince the American public of one essential truth: the folly of war. But within that sphere, Horton is a fox, weaving an encyclopedic knowledge of various conflicts into an elaborate and convincing tapestry that indicts elites, intellectuals, the military-industrial complex, and—with characteristic vitriol—neoconservatives in pushing the US toward unnecessary wars.

Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine, fits this mold to a tee—not because Horton contorts facts to a preconceived narrative. Rather, because it is often the same people pushing conflict after conflict who, unsurprisingly, resort to the same, well-worn playbook. Horton’s tome is riveting, from beginning to end. Here, I will focus on the early post-Cold War years, since this part of the story is oft-neglected in contemporary debates about the origins of the Ukraine war.

With the closing of the Cold War, and the USSR dissolving, the U.S. faced a crisis of success: what use is the NATO military alliance without the Soviet enemy to align against? More broadly, what grand strategy should the US adopt now that containing communism was obsolete? For neoconservatives, whose answer post-Cold War was benevolent global hegemony, the solution was to adapt NATO. NATO must gradually absorb more European nations, while leaving Russia out in the cold—contained and encircled, in an even worse position than during the Cold War. NATO must expand its mission to keep European peace and expand Western democracy, or wither on the vine.

From George H.W. Bush to today, the record meticulously compiled by Horton demonstrates that U.S. and other Western leaders communicated to Russia leaders and officials that NATO would not expand east—and could even allow for Russian membership in NATO. Various efforts like the Partnership for Peace and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe were promoted to foster this impression that Russia would be included in European affairs, alliances, and institutions, rather than these structures aligning against them. All the while, these same US and Western leaders took virtually the opposite positions internally, with the result that the US willfully misled the Russians. The exact internal and external postures waxed and waned over the years, but this ultimate pattern held firm. This was even though, all along, Russian officials warned about how they and the Russian people would react to NATO advancing east. What we see is, in terms with which Americans are well-familiar, “a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object.”

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