Category Archives: Department of Defense

The War has Begun in the S. China Sea, but it is a Quiet One

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So quiet…no one domestically is reporting it….Electronic warfare/jamming and cyber are cheap tools of destruction…and then there is space. So, has the Commander in Chief…if there is one…approved real Rules of Engagement….anywhere?

(below is word for word)

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Over the vast expanse of the South China Sea, a war without gunfire quietly unfolded, its unique impact capturing the world’s attention. On June 30th, a brief yet meaningful tweet from the official Weibo account of China’s Southern Theater Command—“Thick smoke deep in the blue sea, good night”—sparked a massive online reaction, leaving netizens speculating about the secrets behind it.

Recently, there have been widespread rumors online of an intense electronic warfare between China and the United States in the South China Sea, ending with the US deciding to withdraw.

Reports indicate that the skies over northern Philippines recently fell into an unprecedented silence, with all electronic signals cut off. Satellite phones, GPS navigation, television signals—everything reliant on electronic communication seemed to lose its vitality overnight. The twelve-hour “blackout” shocked local residents and global public opinion. This was a direct result of an intense electronic warfare over the South China Sea.

The story begins with a minor conflict between the Philippines and China. Following a fierce confrontation at Ren’ai Reef, the Philippines felt aggrieved by China’s legitimate actions, and the US, as its backer, seized the opportunity. A joint military exercise involving 29 countries was held in the South China Sea, ostensibly to showcase “unity” and “strength,” but with hidden motives—the US military intended to use this opportunity to lay newly developed anti-submarine devices on the seabed, spying on the movements of China’s strategic nuclear submarines and further restricting China’s strategic space.

However, China’s response was swift and decisive. When the US military’s P-8A anti-submarine patrol aircraft quietly dropped high-tech monitoring equipment in the South China Sea, it was promptly detected by the PLA. The Chinese Coast Guard quickly launched a recovery operation. The US military panicked, as losing this equipment would mean wasted effort, and the advanced technology could not fall into PLA hands. This sparked a sensitive reaction, leading to a battle over these critical pieces of equipment.

The US hastily deployed a joint fleet to intercept the Chinese Coast Guard vessels. With the addition of the Shandong carrier strike group, a standoff formed between Chinese and US fleets in the South China Sea. Seeing the unfavorable situation, the US immediately dispatched electronic warfare aircraft to assist the joint fleet in launching severe interference against the Chinese fleet. In response, China rapidly deployed its Y-9 electronic warfare aircraft and 815A electronic reconnaissance ship.

In this battlefield without smoke, electronic warfare took center stage. The US deployed Growler electronic warfare aircraft and RC-135 electronic reconnaissance aircraft in an all-out effort to paralyze the command systems of the Chinese fleet with strong electronic interference. However, the Chinese forces did not retreat; the Y-9 electronic warfare aircraft and 815A electronic reconnaissance ship quickly countered, engaging in fierce electronic offensive and defensive operations over the South China Sea.

The intense electronic warfare near the northern Philippines far exceeded external expectations. Ultimately, the US fleet faced an unprecedented crisis—screens full of static and a total loss of GPS signals. In modern naval warfare, losing communication and navigation capabilities is akin to losing sight and hearing. Confronted with such a scenario, the US had to choose to retreat to avoid greater losses.

The entire electronic warfare lasted a full twelve hours, plunging northern Philippines into complete communication paralysis and sparking widespread global attention and discussion. According to Taichung News, the mysterious battle gained an official tone, with retired generals critiquing the US military’s outdated electronic warfare equipment, asserting it is a full generation behind China’s.

Russian warships Arrive in Cuba, Complete with Hypersonic Missiles

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Meanwhile, our Commander in Chief has left the United States for a G7 Summit in Italy.

Cuban armed forces said in a statement Thursday, confirming the military exercises first disclosed by U.S. officials on Wednesday.

The Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces said the Russian missile frigate Admiral Gorshkov, the nuclear sub Kazan, the oil tanker Pashin and the salvage tug Nikolai Chiker are included.

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(exact text from USNI)

THE PENTAGON – A nuclear Russian submarine carrying guided missiles with a range of 1,000 nautical miles is operating off the East Coast as part of Russian missile drills in the Atlantic.
Kazan, a Yasen-M-class guided missile submarine, is part of a naval action group the Russian Ministry of Defense deployed to the Atlantic. The group is bound for the Caribbean as part of military drills ordered by the Kremlin against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, according to the MoD.

On Tuesday, Kazan and the advanced guided-missile frigate Admiral Gorshkov tested anti-ship missiles in the Atlantic at targets with a range of more than 350 miles before resuming its transit to a previously scheduled port visit to Havana on Wednesday, the Russian MoD said in a statement.

Ship spotters are tracking the Russian action group off the coast. The group was operating just east of the Florida Keys as of Tuesday afternoon and is under surveillance by at least three U.S. guided-missile destroyers and a P-8A Poseidon anti-submarine aircraft, according to public flight and ship tracking data.

A Navy spokesperson referred USNI News to the Office of the Secretary of Defense when asked about the U.S. warships. A Pentagon spokesperson would not confirm the details, but provided a Monday statement about the Russian exercises.

“Russia will conduct heightened naval and air activity near the United States. These actions will likely culminate in a global Russian naval exercise this fall. We are expecting that Russia will temporarily send combat naval vessels to the Caribbean region and these ships will likely conduct port calls in Cuba and possibly Venezuela,” reads a statement from OSD.
“There may also be some aircraft deployments or flights in the region. Russia’s deployments are part of routine naval activity and we are not concerned by Russia’s deployments, which pose no direct threat to the United States. “

While Russian ships operating in the Caribbean is not new, the submarine and the frigate are among the most advanced Russian warships and their presence is the largest visit of Russian Navy ships to the region in years. For example, last year the training ship Perekop sailed to Havana.

The modern Kazan and Gorshkov both field a variety of anti-ship and land attack weapons. While it’s unclear what weapons the two ships used during the Tuesday test fire, they both can field the 1,000-mile range 3M-54 Kalibir NK land attack cruise missile, the P-800 Oniks anti-ship missile and the 3M-22 Zircon hypersonic anti-ship cruise missiles.

According to a report in RUSI, Kazan could field up to 32 P-800s, 40 Kalibirs and an unknown number of Zircons.

The Kalibir, modeled on the U.S. Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles, is a key weapon for the Yasen submarines.

The silent operation and weapon load out of the 13,800-ton submarines are reasons U.S. officials have used to describe the boats as some of the most capable in the world.

For the Yasens, “long-range strike missions appear to … a primary task. This will likely necessitate a change in how NATO manages the anti-submarine warfare challenge in the High North, given that a strategy of barrier defense at the Greenland–Iceland–U.K. gap may actually do little to impact Russian submarines, which may have little need to traverse this barrier in order to achieve their operational ends,” according to RUSI.

Last year, then-commander of U.S. Northern Command Gen. Glen VanHerck said the deployment of cruise-missile submarines off the coast of the U.S. is increasing and is a growing concern for homeland defense.

“[The risk is] absolutely increasing. Within the last year, Russia has also placed their [Yasens] in the Pacific,” he said.
“Now not only the Atlantic, but we also have them in the Pacific and it’s just a matter of time – probably a year or two – before that’s a persistent threat, 24 hours a day. … That impact has reduced decision space for a national senior leader in a time of crisis.”

Biden Ignoring Hybrid Warfare by China Against the U.S.

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Active Measures and Three Warfares

Irregular warfare is not new. During the Cold War, Russian services like the KGB waged aggressive irregular campaigns against the United States around the globe. Oleg Kalugin, the former head of foreign counterintelligence for the KGB, described aktivnyye meropriyatiya and similar operations as the “heart and soul of Soviet intelligence” that were used to “weaken the United States” and to “drive wedges in the Western community alliance of all sorts.”1

As the Biden administration takes office, U.S. adversaries are utilizing irregular strategies and tactics. Perhaps the quintessential example is Russia. Under President Vladimir Putin, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, and other officials, Russia employs a mix of offensive cyber operations, espionage, covert action, and information and disinformation campaigns to weaken the United States and expand Moscow’s influence. Russia has meddled in U.S. elections and waged a disinformation campaign inside the United States, attempting to inflame social, racial, and political tensions through such issues as Black Lives Matter, Covid-19, the Me Too movement, gun control, white supremacy, abortion, and immigration. Russia has placed malware, such as Triton and BlackEnergy, in U.S. critical infrastructure—threatening power plants, electricity grids, communications networks, and financial systems in the U.S. homeland. Russian agencies have also leveraged shadowy organizations to help conduct information operations and cyberattacks, including the Internet Research Agency (IRA); Kaspersky Lab; networks and online personas with creative names like “Cozy Bear,” “Fancy Bear,” and “Guccifer 2.0”; and private military companies like the Wagner Group.

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Additional reading here. 

China’s perspective of national power is broad and includes several elements which the U.S. government considers either irrelevant or in the realm of private industry and non-governmental organizations. China uses soft power and competes in issues the United States often does not even recognize as a part of a wider conflict. Rand’s Andrew Scobell explains, “China’s current perspective on its relationship with the United States is centered on competition that encompasses a wide range of issues embodied in China’s concept of comprehensive national power.”3 Along with the obvious issues of defense and diplomacy, China’s authoritarian government considers technology, cultural, and internal stability issues essential to national power. China sees a future where “war becomes increasingly civilianized,” relying on non-military means to neutralize threats and gain advantages over competitors.4 The U.S. may not recognize some of these issues are part of the competition, but the authoritarian Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses all these means to build advantage.

Chinese manipulation and theft of valuable U.S. science and technology (S&T) is a recognized danger. Chinese intelligence services acquire U.S. and other nations’ scientific research and technology through methods that include: hacking, sending Chinese students and researchers to study and work at western institutions of higher education, and purchasing U.S. companies. William Holsten explains, “There is a massive, coordinated assault taking place on American technology, perhaps the largest, fastest transfer of intellectual property in human history, and much of it is taking place on U.S. soil.”5 In 2017, China passed a legislative framework directing all Chinese to contribute to state security.6 The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) assessed, “It is likely that citizens can be compelled to assist PRC state actors in interference efforts if and when those efforts fall under the broader definition of ‘national intelligence work’ and ‘national intelligence efforts’ as noted in the Law.”7 This assessment in combination with the approximately 350,000 Chinese students attending U.S.’ universities, gives China an incredible capacity to use espionage to procure developing technology.8 A second aspect of the theft of science and technology is the acquisition of U.S. businesses and their subcontracted suppliers by PRC-backed private companies. One example is the acquisition of A123, a U.S. company that develops and supplies lithium-ion batteries.9 A123, after receiving approximately $1 billion from private investors and $100 million in federal government backing, as well as technical advice from General Motors, Motorola, and QualComm, went bankrupt and was subsequently purchased by the Chinese Wanxiang Group Corp for $257 million.10 This acquisition gave China the company’s technological research and manufacturing facilities at an incredibly discounted rate.

Within the U.S. government, multiple agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Security Agency, Federal Trade Commission, work on different aspects of this problem. They observe, detect, and respond individually to the Chinese intellectual property theft. A coordinated U.S. government effort would be more capable of detecting the Chinese malign behavior, creating comprehensive deterrence, and formulating a powerful response. Source

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As a 2020 Department of Defense publication explained, irregular warfare “favors indirect and asymmetric approaches” by countries “in order to erode an adversary’s power, influence, and will.” It includes numerous tools of statecraft that governments can use to shift the balance of power in their favor: information operations (including psychological operations and propaganda), cyber operations, support to state and nonstate partners, covert action, espionage, and economic coercion.

Many of these tools, such as information and cyber operations, can be used for irregular and conventional campaigns. They are simply a means. In irregular warfare, however, a country designs and uses these tools to undermine its adversaries as part of balance-of-power competition without engaging in set-piece battles. Other government officials and scholars have used different terms—such as political warfare, hybrid warfare, gray zone activity, asymmetric conflict, and the indirect approach—to capture some or all of these activities.

In particular, irregular warfare is distinct from conventional warfare, which has sometimes been referred to as “traditional” or “regular” warfare. Conventional warfare involves the use of direct land, naval, air, and other military capabilities to defeat an adversary’s armed forces on a battlefield; control territory, populations, and forces; or annihilate an enemy’s war-making capacity. Irregular warfare is also different from nuclear warfare, which involves the use—or threat—of nuclear weapons against adversaries. Finally, irregular warfare is distinct from routine foreign policy, which can include diplomatic, humanitarian, intelligence, and other activities that have little or nothing to do with competition against adversaries.

Billions in Private Government Contracts Spent on Illegals Transport and Housing

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Then check out the Inspector General’s report found here. 

So, reaching out to a friend of mine, a former contractor with a very large private military contractor put me on to two companies holding contracts. They are MVM and Triple Canopy….check this out please.

MVM = CONTRACTOR WILL PROVIDE STAFFING AND RESOURCES NECESSARY TO ARRANGE TRAVEL AND ESCORT and MVM just during the year 2021 was under contract for $329 million. And by the way, MVM, Inc., a company previously perhaps best known for acting as a contractor for the CIA and the NSA in Iraq, has in recent years become a major player in the U.S. government’s treatment of asylum-seekers, all the while inviting scrutiny for an apparently lax approach to the safety of those in its care. During the infamous 2018 family separation policy, MVM was found to be holding children, including some separated from their parents, in an abandoned Phoenix office building. Most disturbingly, in the past six months alone, MVM has had to shell out $1.8 million to settle federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claims that it had discriminated against African immigrant workers and subjected women on its payroll to sexual harassment and retaliation. This rattled good government advocates, even though the company avoided any admission of wrongdoing.

Watchdogs found the allegations that triggered the EEOC claims unsettling as well. In December 2020, MVM coughed up $1.6 million to get rid of a federal lawsuit that accused it of subjecting African immigrant security personnel to verbal abuse—including a manager’s mockery of their accents and comments about how the company had brought on “too many Africans”—forced them to work on days off, threatened them with dismissal, and even fired some without cause. Less than a month later, it paid out $200,000 to resolve separate litigation that charged one of its managers made unwanted physical and verbal advances toward a number of female employees. When one complained, the suit asserted, the company canned her. Thanks to the Daily Beast article on this from 2021. 

Now just remember how much President Trump was tarred and feathered and sued over the same things….anyone?

Now let us travel over to Guantanamo shall we? The Biden administration began in 2021 to hire private military contractors for GITMO…why? Haitians…the newcomer supply chain from Haiti to Florida and beyond. Indications are that Triple Canopy has this contract due in part to previous experience in Haiti.

The Department of Homeland Security dusted off mass migration event plans, as they’ve done before with Haiti, including in 2021 as the number of Haitians interdicted at sea ticked up.

Defense Department and military officials told Congress that the department is doing “a number of things to ensure we’re keeping track of” a potential mass migration from Haiti.

Rebecca Zimmerman, the official performing the duties of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs, said that so far, the administration has “not yet seen large numbers, what we would characterize as a maritime mass migration.”

Maritime migration presents its own unique challenges and involves US Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations, the US Border Patrol and Coast Guard, among others, coordinating to interdict migrants who are often taking the dayslong journey in makeshift vessels.

The agencies work together to identify and interdict migrants so they may be repatriated. If migrants make landfall, they’re brought into Border Patrol custody.

Border authorities in southern Florida are monitoring the situation in Haiti and preparation is underway in the event of an influx of Haitians arriving, according to a US Customs and Border Protection official. In the past, more than 100 people amassed on vessels for the dangerous journey by sea.

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An aerial view of Bulkeley Hall at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Bulkeley Hall is the naval station headquarters and administration building. Guantanamo Bay is a logistical hub for U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Army, and allied vessels and aviation platforms operating in the Caribbean region of the U.S. 4th Fleet.

An aerial view of Bulkeley Hall at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Bulkeley Hall is the naval station headquarters and administration building. Guantanamo Bay is a logistical hub for U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Army, and allied vessels and aviation platforms operating in the Caribbean region of the U.S. 4th Fleet. (Bill Mesta/U.S. Navy)

More than 300,000 Haitians have been displaced since gangs overran the capital on Feb. 29 and unleashed chaos, according to the United Nations.

The U.S. on Wednesday deployed a Marine Fleet-Anti-terrorism Security Team, or FAST, to secure its embassy in Port-au-Prince and flew Marines into the country over the weekend to rescue nonessential diplomatic staff.

Other American civilians, including a Marine Corps veteran, remain trapped in the Caribbean nation. Source

Scretary of State Blinkin Lied About Gaza on TV

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Begin at the 5:39 mark. The Soufan Center has advised the following in part:

• Various plans under discussion between U.S. and regional officials for the governance and security of post-war Gaza contain similar themes and principles.
• Major Arab states appear willing to contribute personnel to an interim post-war security force and governing body if a clear pathway to an independent Palestinian state is established.
• A key hurdle to developing a plan for post-war Gaza is Israel’s insistence on continued military access to the enclave and its resistance to a role for the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA).
• Other key questions include whether a post-war Gaza authority would be authorized by the United Nations and whether U.S. troops would participate.

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Note, how can Israel complete the full elimination of Hamas by getting out of Gaza? Furthermore, There have been countless discussions with ‘regional’ leaders and Israel about the other side of the conflict in Gaza and options are in fact being discussed. No one wants the Palestinians, at any cost. Why is that exactly? Well let us go a little deeper, finding the historical facts and those facts completely ignored by Blinkin and Biden and his national security staff. Additionally there are 8 factions against Israel, not just Hamas Mr. Blinkin…what about those?

Hamas – Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

Palestinian Islamic Jihad – Al-Quds Brigades

Popular Resistance Committees – Al-Nasser Salah ad-Din Brigades

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) – Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) – Jihad Jibril Brigades

Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) – National Resistance Brigades

Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades

Palestinian Mujahideen Movement – Mujahideen Brigades

Newsweek has the details on each. 

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Studied and published by Reichman University, in part is the following:

The Threat of Global Terrorism

Global terrorism is a strategic threat to the international community and a destabilizing factor in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and even Europe. The Sunni jihadists and the Iranian Shia terrorism are the main generators of present global terrorism.

However, a historical analysis proves that the Palestinian terrorist organizations had a pioneering role in the use of terrorism as a strategic tool in the global arena. The two leading Palestinian organizations, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Fatah, were the backbone of this process of radicalization and violence, trailed by more minor Palestinian factions. No other organization in the world of any ideological color had such a long, wide range and influential terrorist activity between the mid-1960s and the 1990s.

Palestinians’ innovative and sophisticated terrorist methods, used against Israel and the West, were emulated, or copied, by numerous organizations, including Hezbollah and al-Qaeda: suicide bombings, hijacking of civil planes, barometric or liquid bombs on flying planes, attacks on schools, worship places, media outlets. Important leaders and thousands of members of the German Red Army Fraction and Revolutionary Cells, Kurdish PKK, Armenians of ASALA, Argentinians of MONTONEROS, Basques of ETA, etc, were trained in Palestinian camps in Jordan, Lebanon, and South Yemen. Some cooperated operationally with the Palestinians.

The success of the motivated and innovative Palestinian terrorists and the global spread of their attacks couldn’t have been achieved without the Arab state’s sponsorship. Syria, Iraq, Libya, South Yemen, and Iran, after the 1979 Islamist revolution, provided political, financial, logistical, training support and, above all, safe haven, mainly to serve their own strategic regional and international interests. Some states formed their own “Palestinian” groups to be used in the fight for predominance in the Arab world.

Newly published documents since the fall of the Soviet empire demonstrate the critical role of the USSR and its Eastern European satellites in support of Palestinian terrorist organizations and the manipulation of leftist revolutionary groups for the destabilization of Western Europe.

Not only were Palestinian organizations among the first to use terrorism in the international arena on a large scale, unprecedented until then, but they also had an essential role in the spread of international terrorism by the emulation of their new modi operandi and the use of their camps in Jordan, Lebanon, and South Yemen, in many cases with the support of the host states, as haven and platforms for enhancing their military and operational capabilities.

The Palestinian organizations and groups played an essential role in the intricate battles for regional power or as proxies of the radical Arab states, challenging Western interests in the Middle East.

Finally, the fundamental role the intelligence services of the Soviet Union and its allies in Eastern Europe had in enhancing the operational capabilities of these Palestinian organizations and the very sophisticated clandestine methods they used in this subversive endeavor turned not only against Israel but also against Western Europe, was lately exposed.  Read the full summary here.