Tag: perpetual war

F-35A’s 25mm Gun Still Needs Tests To Verify It Works

The Pentagon says more testing is required to demonstrate that the 25mm automatic cannon mounted internally on the F-35A variant of the Joint Strike Fighter is indeed now an effective weapon. Various software and hardware issues had long left the stealthy jets unable to shoot straight, but fixes intended to resolve them have been implemented.

New questions about the actual effectiveness of the F-35A’s internal gun emerged last month after the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), an independent nonprofit, published a heavily redacted declassified copy of a report on the Joint Strike Fighter program from the Pentagon’s Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E). POGO obtained the document, which is dated February 2024, via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and provided its own analysis of the contents. The report also underscored long-standing maintenance and logistics challenges that have contributed to historically low readiness rates across all variants of the F-35 and that could have worrisome impacts on future combat operations. The War Zone has explored those issues and their broader ramifications in detail in a past feature.

“The F-35 lethality assessment suffered from the inability of the F-35’s gun to hit the targets because of design and installation issues,” according to an unredacted section of the February 2024 DOT&E report that POGO obtained.

Keep reading

Marco Rubio: From ‘Perfect Little Puppet’ To Most Dangerous Man Alive

With the appointment of Marco Rubio to the post of Secretary of State, the Trump administration has elevated one of the most pro-war extremists ever to serve in the cabinet of the United States of America.In this article, MintPress highlights Rubio’s history as one of the most reliable warmongering voices in Washington, an individual who has led or supported many of America’s most aggressive foreign policy decisions, including military interventions, coups, and sanctions.

Trump, who promises to be the “most pro-Israel president ever,” has picked a cabinet replete with neoconservative, pro-war voices. Rubio, however, may be the most belligerent of all of them, and his ascension to the most powerful position in Trump’s team does not bode well for the world.

Sanctioning China, The World

Of all the situations to trigger a global nuclear war, a confrontation with Beijing appears among the most likely. The U.S. has constructed a network of over 300 military bases encircling China – another nuclear-armed state. Rubio is doing more than almost anyone to make that doomsday scenario an eventuality. He has made clear that he supports Taiwanese independence, breaking more than a half-century of official U.S. policy in the process. His “Taiwan Peace Through Strength Act” promotes direct military collaboration between the U.S. and Taiwan and calls for increased arms spending on the island.

Rubio was also one of the faces of the 2014 Hong Kong protest movement, a U.S.-backed attempt to wrest the island city from Chinese influence. He invited the movement’s leaders to Washington, D.C., and attempted to introduce legislation to force the United States into supporting Hong Kong’s independence.

At home, he has led the clampdown on Chinese businesses such as Huawei and has spearheaded a movement to uncover and stamp out China’s supposed undue influence over American media and educational institutions.

Unsurprisingly, then, the former Florida senator also supports a trade war and sanctions against China and, indeed, much of the world, including Russia, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and Iran.

Keep reading

Russia Raises Military Budget for Next Three Years

What began as a special military operation has turned into the start of the next world war, and Russia is paying heavily. Russian President Vladimir Putin passed a new budget over the weekend that will allocate 32.5% of the total budget (13.5 trillion rubles) for FY25 to defense spending, which accounts for 6.2% of total GDP.

The amount in proportion to the total budget spent on defense in FY24 was 28.3%. Notably, the budget is factoring in military costs for the next three years – this war will not simply end with Trump. Russia’s pre-war military expenditure was only 3.6 trillion rubles, rising to 5.5 trillion at the beginning of the war from 5.5 trillion rubles in 2022 to 6.4 trillion rubles in 2023.

Russia must find a way to finance this war. The Kremlin estimates GDP for 2024 to come in at 195.8 trillion rubles, although last year’s GDP was 172.1 trillion rubles. The GDP for 2025 is anticipated to be 214.6 trillion rubles. The nation is confident it will continue earning but that is not enough to fund the growing war.

Putin has already raised taxes for the first time in nearly 25 years. The corporate tax rate will rise by 5% from 20% to 25%. The government expects to generate an additional 2.6 trillion rubles in revenue once the tax is implemented in 2025. Russia’s Finance Ministry believes that 2 million people, 3.2% of the working population, will see a rise in their taxes. Taxes on investments will not change. “The changes are aimed at building a fair and balanced tax system,” Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said, adding that the additional funds would bolster Russia’s “economic well-being.”

Keep reading

Media Distorting North Korean Role in Russo-Ukraine War

On November 24, Newsweek ran a story by Ellie Cook with the headline “Russian and North Korean Troops Shrink Ukraine’s Gains in Kursk.”

The title made it seem like North Korea was fighting on the front-lines with the Russians to push back the Ukrainian offensive in Kursk.

However, the opening of the article stated: “Moscow is taking territory back from Ukrainian forces in Russia’s western Kursk region, according to new assessments, as the U.S. says it expects North Korean reinforcements to head for front-line clashes soon.”

Further down in the piece, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is quoted as stating that he “expected to see North Korean soldiers engaged in combat soon.”

Meaning that they were not yet in combat, so Newsweek’s title was misleading.

Cook went on to write that “the State Department confirmed in mid-November that North Korean soldiers were ‘engaging in combat operations with Russian forces’ after undergoing training in how to use drones, artillery, and carry out ‘basic infantry operations.’”

These latter statements contradict what Austin said and what Cook reported on at the beginning of her article.

The contradictory statements and record of deceit of the U.S. State Department make one question what the real story is with North Korea.

Keep reading

Netanyahu Knew All Along – Israeli Government Staffer Reveals All

Eli Feldstein is accused of unlawfully acquiring sensitive military information and leaking it to influence public opinion.

The lawyer representing Eli Feldstein, spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security office and accused of leaking classified security documents, has stated that Netanyahu was aware of both the documents and the plan to leak them, Israeli media reported on Wednesday.

Feldstein’s lawyer, Oded Savoray, reportedly accused the prime minister of “shirking responsibility for an event he caused” and stated that Feldstein chose not to remain silent, effectively sacrificing himself for Netanyahu.

“There was a stage in the investigation where he decided to stop taking the fall for the Prime Minister and his office,” attorney Savoray told the Kan public broadcaster, referring to Feldstein’s assertion that Netanyahu knew about the document before it was published in German tabloid Bild.

“(Feldstein) did not say that Netanyahu ordered the document to be released to foreign media, but that he knew about the document and the decision to release it to the media,” the lawyer added.

Keep reading

Tough Diplomacy, Not Invasion, Is the Way Forward With Iran

Back in September, Israel successfully destroyed a bunker buried 60 feet underground, killing virtually all of Hezbollah’s senior leadership. Executing the operation involved about a dozen F-15s, each carrying six 2000-pound GBU-31v(3) joint direct attack munitions (JDAMs) bunker-buster bombs. First the residential high rises over the underground bunker were systematically destroyed. Then a brilliantly planned operation was executed, involving dropping dozens of bunker-busters in a precisely timed pattern that eventually blasted through 20 yards of soil and rock to destroy the bunker. Only a few militaries in the world could have executed such an intricate and complex operation.

The point of the above description is not to praise Israeli military competence, but to show just how hard it is to destroy a bunker. This sheds concerning light on analysis by the Institute for Science and International Security that finds that two of Iran’s most important nuclear weapons facilities buried under at least 80 to 145 meters of rock (262 to 475 feet), with further protection from reinforced concrete that is very resistant to penetration and the ground shockwave produced by a bunker buster’s explosives. This makes taking them out problematic; the world’s most powerful conventional bunker buster, the United States’ 30,000-pound GBU-57 bunker buster can penetrate only about 40 meters of moderately hard rock.

Still, multiple precision strikes by massive ordnance penetrators delivered by our B-2 stealth bombers could almost certainly severely damage or destroy Iran’s less deeply buried facilities. Even the more deeply buried facilities could be crippled by collapsing their main entrances, although such facilities almost certainly have backup entrances that would allow them to continue with some level of function.

But even if our B-2s can evade Iran’s Russia-supplied anti-stealth radars and deliver enough GBU-57s to damage or destroy all the known facilities involved with nuclear weapons production and delivery, we still don’t really, truly know how much weapons-grade enriched uranium or plutonium—which can be quickly made into implosion-type fission bombs—the Islamic Republic has been able to acquire and hide away in secret locations.

Keep reading

Neocons Try Again in Syria

A day after Israel agreed to a ceasefire in Lebanon last week the long dormant war in Syria reignited as jihadist forces seized the city of Aleppo and advanced virtually unhindered in its quest to overthrow the Syrian government until finally meeting resistance from the Syrian Army backed up by Russia. This is the last chance for neocons in the United States to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad before Donald Trump, who tried to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, resumes the presidency in 49 days.

On the neocon list of ways to make the world safer for Israel, Iran originally occupied pride of place. “Real men go to Tehran!” was the muscular brag. But Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was persuaded to acquiesce in a less ambitious plan – to “do Iraq” and remove the “evil dictator” in Baghdad first.

As the invaders/occupiers got bogged down in Iraq, it seemed more sensible to “do Syria” next. With the help of “friendly services,” the neocons mounted a false-flag chemical attack outside Damascus in late August 2013, blaming it on President Bashar al-Assad, whom U.S. President Barack Obama had earlier said, “had to go.”

Obama had called such a chemical attack a red line but, mirabile dictu, chose to honor the U.S. Constitution by asking Congress first. Worse still for the neocons, during the first days of September, Russian President Vladimir Putin pulled Obama’s chestnuts out of the fire by persuading Syria to destroy its chemical weapons under U.N. supervision.

Obama later admitted that virtually all of his advisers had wanted him to order Tomahawk cruise missiles into Syria.

Keep reading

Police Raid Pro-Palestine Students’ Home in FBI-Led Graffiti Investigation

In the early morning hours of November 7, more than 12 police officers showed up outside at an address in Springfield, Virginia, knocked, broke down the door, and raided the family home of two Palestinian American students at George Mason University.

University and Fairfax County police refused to show the family the warrant. One Fairfax County detective with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force — cross-designated as a local and federal agent — was also present. The family and Mason faculty supporting them, however, believe they know what the FBI-led investigation was about: the young family members’ pro-Palestine activism.

Two of the Palestinian American family’s daughters attend George Mason. One is an undergraduate student and the co-president of Mason’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. The other is in a master’s program at Mason and a former president of the school’s SJP chapter.

Keep reading

Ukraine’s best hope for peace looks a lot like Donald Trump

Last week, people who fear a third world war got more reasons to worry. Ukraine, with permission from the White House, struck Russian territory with long-range missiles supplied by the United States. Russian President Vladimir Putin has long warned that such an attack would mean that NATO and Russia “are at war,” and he has raised the specter of nuclear retaliation. Granted, these threats could be bluffs, but last week Putin gave them some credibility by (a) loosening the conditions for Russia’s use of nuclear weapons, (b) firing a multiple-warhead, nuclear-capable missile at Ukraine for the first time in the war, and (c) declaring, in a speech after the strike, that Russia would be entitled to attack any nations that aid Ukraine’s strikes into Russian territory.

While Putin’s caution during previous crises suggests he’s not about to reach for the nuclear button just yet, his dramatic response has complicated any path to a peace deal. Meanwhile, some liberal voices have predicted that Trump’s looming presidency, far from hastening an end to the conflict as Trump has promised to do, will prolong it. If Trump were to cut off arms to Ukraine, he’d remove an important incentive for Putin to call it quits, according to Ben Rhodes, a former White House official under Barack Obama. Among conservatives who advocate foreign policy restraint, there is worry that Trump’s hawkish cabinet nominees portend a departure from the peace agenda he campaigned on. As for hawkish critics of Trump on both left and right, many believe that he may end the war by just giving away the farm to Putin.

These concerns are valid. But Trump has good reasons to try proving the doubters wrong. He understands that foreign policy debacles can crater a president’s approval ratings, and he has staked his reputation on being able to end a conflict that started and continues to escalate on President Joe Biden’s watch. “I’m the only one who can get the war stopped,” he told Newsweek this September. Brokering a respectable peace would be a boon to his legacy and an embarrassment for his political opponents—and Trump loves splattering egg on the faces of his detractors. So there is room for optimism alongside the worry. Trump may well manage not only to stop the war but also to get Ukraine the best deal it could realistically hope for.

Some say Trump’s Ukraine promises are hollow since he hasn’t outlined a viable peace deal. But Trump maintains, plausibly enough, that he can’t reveal details of a plan without boxing himself in. It would be better, he says, to hammer out a deal with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky behind closed doors, which means keeping mum on specifics for now. Despite Trump’s reticence, there are signs of the kind of deal he’d push for—and signs that both Putin and Zelensky would go for it.

This fall, J.D. Vance, Trump’s running mate and now vice president-elect, laid out a likely settlement: The current battle lines become a “heavily fortified” demilitarized zone to prevent future Russian aggression; Kyiv retains its sovereign independence; and Russia gets assurances that Ukraine won’t join NATO. Moscow would presumably also get to keep the lands in eastern and southern Ukraine that it now holds.

Keep reading

Visualizing Ukraine’s Collapsing Front Lines Amid The Steady Russian Onslaught 

As we detailed earlier, the White House is currently overseeing a ‘massive surge’ in arms to Ukraine with just 50 days left before President-elect Trump enters office. The US is also this week announcing $725 million in more aid, which is the latest defense package for Ukraine drawn directly from US inventories.

It will include a second shipment of antipersonnel mines, and comes the same day that Germany also unveiled another $680 million in Ukraine aid. The Western allies have asserted that they want to see Zelensky and Ukraine forces in as favorable a position as possible before negotiations to end the war inevitably proceed (something which Trump has repeatedly promised from day one of his second administration). But the prime question remains: what good will the rapid infusion of more weapons do when the real problem is Ukraine’s collapsing manpower? To illustrate the reality of Russia’s rapid advance of the past several months…

Keep reading