Russia vs. United States in Syria: Tensions Escalate

In 2013, the Greeks and the Russians signed an agreement on military cooperation.

“We signed an agreement that opens new frameworks and new boundaries for our further work in the sphere of military-technical cooperation,” Sergei Shoigu told journalists after talks with his Greek counterpart Dimitrios Avramopoulos in Athens.
The deal concerns armaments supplied previously as well as military hardware, maintenance and new hardware supplies, Shoigu said.
A Russian deputy defense minister, Anatoly Antonov, said after the talks that Shoigu had proposed that Avramopoulos consider working out an agreement to streamline the procedure for Russian navy vessels calling at Greek ports.
Antonov said the two defense ministers had also discussed the possibility of holding personnel training events and exchanging experience in the fight against terrorism and piracy, as well as other areas of cooperation.
This new agreement will make it easier for Russian ships to dock at Greek port during their deployment in the Mediterranean thus making Greece a reliable alternative to the Syrian port Tartus.
According to Greek blog SManalysis, Russia will help Greek Navy to support the Zubr class hovercraft. Greek Navy has procured 4 of these air-cushioned landing craft. Three of them joined the Greek Navy in 2001 and the last one in 2005. They have a displacement of 550 tons and can carry up to 130 tons military material: 3 main battle tanks or 10 armored personnel carriers or 230 troops.

More here. It must also be noted that the Russians are also using Basel International Airport in Switzerland and Zakynthos in the Ionian Sea in Greece for a staging Russian military hub.

U.S. launches secret drone campaign to hunt Islamic State leaders in Syria

CONFRONTING THE ‘CALIPHATE’ | Part of an occasional series

(Not so secret if the Washington Post is reporting it)

In part from WaPo: The CIA and U.S. Special Operations forces have launched a secret campaign to hunt terrorism suspects in Syria as part of a targeted killing program that is run separately from the broader U.S. military offensive against the Islamic State, U.S. officials said.

The CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) are flying drones over Syria in a collaboration responsible for several recent strikes against senior Islamic State operatives, the officials said. Among those killed was a British militant thought to be an architect of the terrorist group’s effort to use social media to incite attacks in the United States, the officials said.

The clandestine program represents a significant escalation of the CIA’s involvement in the war in Syria, enlisting the agency’s Counterterrorism Center (CTC) against a militant group that many officials believe has eclipsed al-Qaeda as a threat.

Although the CTC has been given an expanded role in identifying and locating senior Islamic State figures, U.S. officials said the strikes are being carried out exclusively by JSOC. The officials said the program is aimed at terrorism suspects deemed “high-value targets.” More here.

US Concern Over Russian Military Buildup In Syria

WASHINGTON — The United States expressed concern to Moscow on Saturday about what it called reports of an imminent and enhanced Russian military buildup in war-torn Syria.

Washington made its views known in a telephone call from Secretary of State John Kerry to his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, the State Department said.

“The secretary made clear that if such reports were accurate, these actions could further escalate the conflict, lead to greater loss of innocent life, increase refugee flows and risk confrontation with the anti-ISIL coalition operating in Syria,” the State Department said.

In his call with Lavrov, Kerry discussed “US concerns about reports suggesting an imminent enhanced Russian buildup there,” the department said.

“The two agreed that discussions on the Syrian conflict would continue in New York later this month,” it said.

The New York Times reported that Russia has sent a military advance team to ally Syria and was taking other steps that Washington fears may signal plans to vastly expand its military support for President Bashar al-Assad.

The Times said the moves included the recent transport of prefabricated housing units for hundreds of people to a Syrian airfield and the delivery of a portable air traffic control station there.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin was asked Friday whether Russia was taking part in military operations against the Islamic State group in Syria.

“We are looking at various options but so far what you are talking about is not on the agenda,” he said.

“To say we’re ready to do this today — so far it’s premature to talk about this. But we are already giving Syria quite serious help with equipment and training soldiers, with our weapons,” RIA Novosti state news agency quoted Putin as saying.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Saturday’s telephone call was made at Kerry’s initiative.

It made no mention of US concerns about a possible Russian military buildup, but said the two men discussed “different aspects of the situation in Syria and its environs, as well as the objectives of the fight against IS and other terrorist groups.”

The foreign ministry said they spoke of “cooperation” between Moscow and Washington to “support UN efforts aimed at launching a political process in Syria.”

Lavrov and Kerry agreed to remain in close contact in pursuing a settlement of the Syrian conflict, which has claimed more than 240,000 lives since March 2011 and driven millions more from their homes.

Flurry of Diplomacy

In recent weeks, there has been a flurry of diplomatic consultations to try to find a way out of the crisis, including an unprecedented meeting in Doha on Aug. 3 between the top US, Russian and Saudi diplomats.

The Saudi and Iranian foreign ministers were later received separately in Moscow, as were representatives of various more moderate Syrian opposition groups.

Moscow, which has been a bulwark of military and diplomatic support to the Assad regime, is promoting an expanded coalition against IS that includes countries of the region as well as the regular Syrian army.

President Barack Obama for his part received Saudi King Salman on Friday for talks dominated by Syria. They advocate a political solution that would include Assad’s departure from power.

Exposing Russia’s Secret Army in Syria

by Weiss: Some wear uniforms, some don’t, but from highway checkpoints to jet fighters, Russians are being spotted all over the Assad dictatorship’s heartland.
Russian military officers are now in Damascus and meeting regularly with Iranian and Syrian counterparts, according to a source with close contacts in the Bashar al-Assad regime. “They’re out in restaurants and cafes with other high officials in the Syrian Army,” the source told The Daily Beast, “mainly concentrated in Yaafour and Sabboura, areas that are close to each other, and in west Mezze,” referring to a district in the capital where Assad’s praetorian Fourth Armored Division keeps an important airbase. “The Russians aren’t in uniform, but they’re constantly hanging out with officers from the Syrian Army’s central command.”  

Other Syrians claim to have seen Russians in uniform. 

One family that recently traveled from Aleppo to Damascus by taxi before emigrating by plane to Turkey says it saw a small contingent of Russian troops embedded with Syrians at a military checkpoint in the capital. “We were near the Shaghour district when we noticed two soldiers who were not Syrian,” a family representative said. “They were tall, blond and blue-eyed and wore different fatigues from the Syrians and carried weapons. I’m telling you, they were Russian.” 

The opposition-linked website All4Syria seems to corroborate such eyewitness accounts. Many residents of Damascus, it claimed, have “observed in the first three days of September a noticeable deployment of Iranian and Russian elements in the neighborhoods of Baramkeh, al-Bahsa, and Tanzim Kfarsouseh.” The Venezia Hotel in al-Bahsa “has been turned into a military barracks for the Iranians.”

Such news comes amid a flurry of reports that Russia has made plans for a direct military intervention in Syria’s four-year civil war and may actually have started one already. The New York Times reported Saturday that Russia has sent prefabricated housing units, capable of sheltering as many as 1,000 military personnel, and a portable air traffic control station to another Syrian airbase in Latakia. That coastal province, the Assad family’s ancestral home, has already seen Russian troops caught on video operating BTR-82 infantry fighting vehicles against anti-Assad rebels, atop rumors that Moscow may be deploying an “expeditionary force,” including Russian pilots who would fly combat missions.

They may already be doing so. A social media account affiliated with the al-Qaeda franchise Jabhat al-Nusra posted images of what appeared to be Russian Air Force jets and drones flying in the skies of Syria’s northwest Idlib province. They were, specifically, the Mig-29 Fulcrum, the Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker, the Su-34 Fullback, and the Pchela-1T drone. These images were analyzed as credible by the specialist website The Aviationist, which also noted that “during the past days, Flightradar24.com has exposed several flights of a Russian Air Force… Il-76 airlifter (caught by means of its Mode-S transponder) flying to and from Damascus using radio call sign ‘Manny 6,’ most probably supporting the deployment of a Russian expeditionary force.

ISIS isn’t in Idlib; the terror army that calls itself the Islamic State was driven out of the province completely. As one U.S. intelligence official put it to The Daily Beast, “The question is, what are Russia’s underlying motivations? Are they really there to fight [ISIS], or just to prop up Assad?” 

The concern is that Russia could use military strikes against ISIS as a kind of cover or feint for attacking rebel forces as well, including non-Islamist groups. The U.S. sees these forces as a potential bulwark against ISIS. But they also have as one of their primary goals overthrowing Assad—an effort that Washington has been unwilling to support. 

The White House has fallen back on its customary posture of wait-and-see as proof mounts that the Russians are coming. Spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters this week: ”We are aware of reports that Russia may have deployed military personnel and aircraft to Syria, and we are monitoring those reports quite closely. Any military support to the Assad regime for any purpose, whether it’s in the form of military personnel, aircraft supplies, weapons, or funding, is both destabilizing and counterproductive.” Another unnamed U.S. official told Britain’s Daily Telegraph, ”Russia has asked for clearances for military flights to Syria, [but] we don’t know what their goals are.”

Actually, their goals aren’t terribly hard to discern, nor do they necessarily contradict implicit White House policy, whatever Josh Earnest says. 

Photographs circulated on social media showing what appeared to be Russian soldiers in Zabadani, a city 45 kilometers north of Damascus, which has changed hands several times during the civil war. For months rebels have been fending off a scorched-earth assault by the Syrian army, Hezbollah and Iranian forces, which the U.N. assesses to have led to “unprecedented levels of destruction.” So the injection of Russian legionnaires into a multinational cocktail of combatants duking it out in Zabadani would make perfect sense. The city is considered the sine qua non of Iran’s “strategic corridor” in Syria, which runs from the capital to Lebanon and up along the Mediterranean coastline. The formidable Islamist rebel brigade Ahrar al-Sham knows who’s in charge here—it has even negotiated an ultimately unsuccessful ceasefire directly with the Islamic Republic rather than with Assad.

“The Russians are clearly setting themselves on the ground in regime areas, planting the flag in ‘Alawistan,’ as it were,” says Tony Badran, a Syria expert at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, referring to the Alawites, the schismatic Shia sect to which the Assad clan and the more powerful Syrian regime elites belong. “This, ironically, reinforces the Obama administration’s position, which has drawn a clear line around the regime enclave: The opposition is not to enter Damascus and the coastal cities. So the Russian deployment actually fits well with the administration’s approach.”

Right on cue, then, came Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement Friday that Syria would soon hold new parliamentary elections and inaugurate a power-sharing government with what he deemed a “healthy” opposition. He did not specify what he considered the diseased opposition, although this would almost certainly include Free Syrian Army fighters the CIA and Pentagon has been recruiting as U.S. proxies.  

While Putin dismissed the existence of any Russian combat forces in Syria as “premature,” he did allow that he was “looking at various options” for militarily involving himself in the war.  Coming from someone who only admits to Russian invasions after the fact, such a signposting of motive should not be ignored.

Moscow’s close coordination with Tehran, both in Damascus and internationally, is also no coincidence. Iran is now busy shopping a new international “peace plan” for Syria, one that goes beyond the parameters of the previously inked Geneva II protocol.  

Intriguingly, just weeks after Iran agreed to a deal to control its nuclear program in exchange for international sanctions relief, Major General Qasem Soleimani, the commander of its own expeditionary force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps-Quds Force, flew to Moscow for talks with Russian officials, violating the international travel ban related to his terrorist activity. No doubt solidifying Russian backing for whatever he has planned for Syria was high up on Soleimani’s agenda.

It’s worth noting that this isn’t the first time since the Syrian war broke out that there’s been chatter about Russian troops in Damascus.

In May 2013, sources close to the Kremlin suggested that Putin had dispatched the Zaslon special forces detachment to the Syrian capital. Formed in 1998, and conceived as a clandestine unit combining the purviews of America’s Delta Force and Secret Service, Zaslon consists of a mere 280 highly trained operatives. It answers to Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the SVR, and is tasked with protecting high-value Russian officials in uncertain conditions and sometimes even conducting assassinations. It was rumored to have killed Iraqi insurgents in 2006 after the latter had captured and executed Russian diplomats. 

As Mark Galeotti, a New York University-based specialist on Russia’s military and security forces, observed two years ago: “According to one Russian report, two Zaslon elements were also deployed to Baghdad in the dying days of the [Saddam] Hussein regime. Their mission was to seize or destroy documents which Moscow would have found embarrassing had they ended up in U.S. hands. Given the scale and depth of Russian support for Assad, it could similarly be that they are also in Syria to cover Moscow’s tracks or else ensure that sensitive military technology—including new surface-to-air systems—does not end up in foreign hands.”

Under the present circumstances, it is now likely that any Russian soldiers in Damascus are there to fortify and ring-fence another spent Baathist regime, if not to join in a war that is fought increasingly by “foreign hands.”

 

Caution: Pope’s Visit and New Immigrant Quotas

Pope Francis will be visiting the United States after He completes his trip to Cuba on September 22. Pope Francis will include Washington D.C., New York (Madison Square Garden and Central Park) and Philadelphia on His agenda. During his time in New York, He will address the United Nations, make an appears at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum and Our Lady of Queen of Angels School in East Harlem.

At the core of His presentations, you can bet it will include refugees and immigration.

The back story and what you need to know.

President to decide on refugee quota for FY2016 NOW! Will Congress lift a finger to protect America?

Posted by Ann Corcoran

It is September and as we speak, the Obama Administration (US State Department) is putting its final touches on their annual Determination Letter and accompanying report to Congress.

Obama shushing

The new fiscal year begins on October 1 and by the 30th of this month Obama will send to Congress for “consultation” a document which states how many refugees and from what regions of the world we will be “welcoming” refugees to America.

This so-called “consultation” with Congress is a legal requirement. However, it is common knowledge that the House and Senate Committees responsible for analyzing this information have in the past been silent.

In fact, Ken Tota (who recently served as the interim director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement) was overheard saying that “in his entire almost 30-year career, Congress has never questioned the numbers.”

State Department scoping meetings

For our many new readers, this year there was no US State Department hearing on the “size and scope” of the refugee program (or, LOL! they kept it very secret!).  We can only assume that was because in the three previous years they heard testimony that they didn’t like from citizens that were concerned about the program.  Here is one post of dozens on the topic.  Readers of RRW had flooded the State Department with negative testimony about the program.  In fact, we testified that there should be a moratorium on the program.  See my 2014 testimony here.

I mention this because the Presidential Determination being prepared now is the culmination of the annual process that began with those late spring ‘hearings’ (and again there was no public opportunity to comment this year that we were aware of).

Also, regular readers know that we have been discussing, and attempting to obtain, R & P abstracts the subcontractors located around the country prepare for Washington—those are part of the process as well. Just as taxpaying citizens had no opportunity to testify to the State Department this year, taxpaying citizens have no input in the abstract preparation process either.

Presumably one final check in the system to protect America is the “consultation” with Congress in September of each year.

However, if this year is like all others, our elected representatives in Washington will not lift a finger to question the size and scope of this year’s proposed refugee quota!

And, this could be the year that plans to resettle tens of thousands of Syrians will be announced!

Click here for last year’s Presidential Determination, and here for the lengthy report which was sent to Congress on September 18th last year.  The report begins:

This Proposed Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2015: Report to the Congress is submitted in compliance with Sections 207(d)(1) and (e) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). The Act requires that before the start of the fiscal year and, to the extent possible, at least two weeks prior to consultations on refugee admissions, members of the Committees on the Judiciary of the Senate and the House of Representatives be provided with the following information….

Note that the report goes to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.  Chairmen of the full committees are Bob Goodlatte and Chuck Grassley respectively.  Subcommittee Chairmen responsible for Refugee Resettlement are Trey Gowdy and Jeff Sessions.

Will those chairmen help protect America this year by holding hearings when the Presidential Determination for FY2016 arrives on the Hill which by law should be in about two weeks!  Or, will they (yet again!) simply rubber stamp what Obama wants?

 

Congress: Islamist Terror Threat Matrix

U.S. Terror Matrix

 

 

 

The full House of Representatives 8 page report is here.

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The jihadist threat in the U.S. homeland is high and has escalated dramatically this year. There have been more U.S.-based jihadist terror cases in 2015 than in any full year since 9/11. The number of U.S. terrorist cases involving homegrown violent jihadists has gone from 38 in July 2010 to 124 today—more than a three-fold increase in just five years.

ISIS is fueling the Islamist terror wildfire across the globe at unprecedented speed. As of the end of August, the group has inspired or directed 57 terror attack plots against Western targets, including 15 in the United States. A recent train attack in France would have been a mass-casualty attack had it not been for an alert group of Americans. There have now been nearly twice as many ISIS-linked attack plots against the West this year (37) as there were in all of 2014 (20).

Islamist terrorists are intent on killing American law enforcement and military personnel, in addition to innocent civilians. Radicals are increasingly targeting men and women in uniform here in the United States. In August, ISIS supporters released another “hit list” of American government personnel, including service members. Since early 2014, the majority of Islamist terror plots on U.S. soil have featured plans to kill police or U.S. service members.

ISIS has largely maintained its terror safe havens in Syria and Iraq while expanding globally more than a year after the U.S. and its allies launched operations against it. Al Qaeda affiliates from Syria to Yemen have also carved out sanctuary and seized additional terrain. ISIS retained control over its major strongholds in Syria and Iraq while undertaking disruption attacks and offensives in key territory; ISIS-affiliated militants have simultaneously consolidated control in Libya. Foreign fighters continue to swell the ranks of Islamist extremist groups looking to recruit foot soldiers and activate followers to launch attacks in their home countries.

HOMEGROWN ISLAMIST EXTREMISM

The jihadist threat in the U.S. homeland is high and has escalated dramatically this year.

By the numbers

Since September 11, 2001, there have been 124 U.S. terrorist cases involving homegrown violent jihadists. Over 80 percent of these cases—which include plotted attacks and attempts to join foreign terrorist organizations—have occurred or been disrupted since 2009.1

 

• Authorities have arrested or charged at least 52 individuals in the United States this year – 67 since 2014 – in ISIS-related cases. The cases involve individuals: plotting attacks; attempting to travel to join ISIS overseas; sending money, equipment and weapons to terrorists; falsifying statements to federal authorities; and failing to report a felony.2

• FBI Director James Comey has said authorities have hundreds of open investigations of potential ISIS-inspired extremists that cover all 56 of the bureau’s field offices in all 50 states. He stated there may be hundreds or thousands of Americans who are taking in recruitment propaganda over social media applications: “It’s like the devil sitting on their shoulders, saying ‘kill, kill, kill.”

Recent Developments

August 24: Ahmed Mohammed El Gammal, 42, was arrested in Avondale, Arizona, for helping a 24-year-old New York City resident travel to Syria to receive military training from ISIS. El Gammal was an avid ISIS supporter online and engaged the recruit through social media before in-person meetings. El Gammal and the recruit communicated with an unnamed co-conspirator based in Turkey.

TERROR PLOTS AGAINST THE WEST

ISIS is fueling the Islamist terror wildfire across the globe at unprecedented speed.

By the numbers

• Since early 2014, there have been 57 planned or executed ISIS-linked terror plots against Western targets, including 15 inside in the United States.3

• There have been nearly twice as many ISIS-linked plots against Western targets in the first seven months of this year (37) than in all of 2014 (20).4

Recent Developments

• August 21: A 25-year-old Moroccan national, Ayoub El Khazzani, attacked passengers on a train in Thalys, France, before a group led by three Americans, including two service members on vacation, subdued him. Khazzani was armed with an arsenal of weapons and 270 rounds of ammunition. He watched a jihadist propaganda video before attempting to launch his attack. He had lived in and attended a radical mosque in Spain before relocating to France. He had also lived in Belgium and traveled from Germany to Turkey in early May before returning to Europe in June. This trip was reportedly part of a plot to fight with ISIS in Syria.

• August 13: ISIS’s “hacking division” released information regarding 1,400 American government personnel, including service members, and encouraged supporters to track down and attack them. The list included names, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers. ISIS operative and hacker Junaid Hussain had been central to similar plots targeting servicemembers; Hussain was eliminated in an August 24th drone strike in Syria.

FOREIGN FIGHTERS

Undeterred by airstrikes, foreign fighters continue to pour into the conflict zone in Syria and Iraq, bolstering ISIS and representing a potential threat to their home countries—including America—upon return.

By the numbers

• More than 25,000 fighters from 100 countries have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join extremists—the largest convergence of Islamist terrorists in world history. U.S. estimates reportedly put its current manpower at 20,000-30,000 members. “We’ve seen no meaningful degradation in their numbers” since last August, according to a defense official.

• Approximately 4,500 Western fighters have traveled to Syria and Iraq.5 Europol recently assessed that the high-end estimate of EU citizens who left to fight in Syria may have been as high as 5,000 at the beginning of this year.

• An estimated 550 Western women have traveled to the conflict zone.

Read the whole report here.

 

 

The Truth Hidden by the Left of Affects of Immigration on Wages

The Brookings Institution is a liberal think tank that covers all policy, foreign and domestic. The officially describe themselves and non-partisan but that is hardly the case. The institution was founded in 1916 and is the president is Strobe Talbott, where he and President Bill Clinton were roommates at the University of Oxford, both there as Rhodes Scholars. In later years, Talbott helped the Clintons in their political campaigns. Now that the table is set:

NYT, Brookings Unwittingly Show How Immigration Affects Wages

DailyCaller: Wages for many American workers continue to decline, hitting workers the most in industries where demand for work is increasing, a new study found. One explanation via the Brookings Institution is that immigrants fill a disproportionate share of those jobs.

The New York Times covered the National Employment Law Project study:

“Despite steady gains in hiring, a falling unemployment rate and other signs of an improving economy, take-home pay for many American workers has effectively fallen since the economic recovery began in 2009 …

“The declines were greatest for the lowest-paid workers in sectors where hiring has been strong — home health care, food preparation and retailing — even though wages were already below average to begin with in those service industries.”

The study raises the question: Why would wages be falling the most in industries with greater demand for workers?

The Times notes that “macroeconomic forces like automation, demographics and globalization” are contributing to falling wages, and refers to ongoing slack in the labor market —the labor supply is still outstripping the (increasing) demand for work.

One explanation the Times doesn’t mention directly is that immigrants share a disproportionately high share of these jobs, and are to some extent crowding American workers out of these low-skilled, high in demand industries.

A 2012 Brookings Institution report found that many of the jobs in the occupations deemed fastest and largest growing by the Bureau of Labor Statistics are going to immigrants — in many of the same occupations the Times reports have seen the greatest decline in wages in recent years.

The NELP report lists restaurant cooks, food preparation workers, home and personal care aides and cleaning service jobs as those that have taken the biggest hit in wages. Real wages for restaurant cooks have declined 8.9 percent since 2009.

The Brookings report found immigrants (legal and illegal) are clustered in those same sectors — health care, food prep and service and the accommodations industry. In private households, immigrants were 49 percent of all workers, in the accommodation sector they were 31 percent, and in home and personal care they were more than 20 percent of all workers.

Among the 15 occupations expected to see the largest numerical growth in coming years, eight had high shares of foreign-born workers, and among the 15 fastest growing occupations, seven had high shares of foreign-born workers.

“If current trends continue, we would expect to see these occupations filled disproportionately by immigrants,” the Brookings report stated in 2012.

Here is a New York Times chart based on the NELP report that shows where wages declined the most, followed by a chart from the Brookings report that shows how immigrants share in the largest growing jobs. You can compare the overlap.

Screen Shot 2015-09-04 at 8.25.20 AM

 

 

 In 1970, immigrants made up approximately 5 percent of the population and 5 percent of the civilian labor force, the Brookings report notes. In 2010 that number grew to 23.1 million immigrants in the labor force, making up 16.4 percent of the total.
Screen Shot 2015-09-04 at 10.30.46 AM

“As the economy sputters along with some signs of improvement, people often point to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’s list of fastest-growing occupations as the bright spots in the labor market,” Bloomberg Business reported in a 2012 story about the Brookings report.

“These occupations—in nursing, home health care, and food service—are low-skilled, low-pay jobs, but at least they are market segments that present opportunity.  Much of that opportunity, it turns out, is being seized by immigrants.”

Since 1970, the foreign-born population has increased by more than 325 percent, while wages and share of income fell. 

The U.S. foreign-born population — legal and illegal immigrants — is at an all-time high of 42.1 million, recent Census Bureau data shows. And by 2023 the foreign-born population will exceed 51 million — the largest share of total population ever recorded in American history.

Nearly one in five U.S. residents will be an immigrant by 2060, largely because of legal immigration, not illegal immigration, a previous Center for Immigration Studies analysis of the Census data found. And immigrants will account for 82 percent of population growth in the U.S. from 2010 through 2060.

If federal law is not changed, the U.S. is on track to issue 10 million green cards over the next decade — a massive new permanent resident bloc larger than the combined populations of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

(Photo: Screenshot/ Center for Immigration Studies)

 

 

 

China Russia Military Parade, During Economic Spiral

In part LATimesPresident Xi Jinping announced Thursday that China will cut its military by 300,000 troops, a significant reduction in one of the largest militaries in the world and a move that the Chinese leader called a gesture of peace. China’s ruling Communist Party staged a massive military parade in central Beijing, sending a stream of goose-stepping troops, tanks, and ballistic missiles down a major east-west thoroughfare as fighter jets zoomed overhead trailing multicolored smoke.

Xi’s speech kicked off the parade — officially called the “Commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Victory of Chinese People’s Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and World Anti-Fascist War.”

An estimated 12,000 troops – about 1,000 of whom hailed from Belarus, Cuba, Tajikistan, and other countries – marched along the 10-lane Changan Avenue from the commercial center Wangfujing to Tiananmen Square, about 1.5 miles away. They were joined by 200 fighter jets and 500 pieces of military hardware, including tanks and ballistic missiles.

Representatives from 49 countries were in attendance, including Russian leader Vladimir Putin, South Korean President Park Geun-hye and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Rory Medcalf, head of the national security college at Australian National University, said that Beijing may have decided to cut 300,000 troops “in the name of efficiency and cost saving so that the defense budget can be reallocated to 21st century capabilities.” More here.

The friendship between Russia’s Putin and China’s Xi is becoming strained

BEIJING: They have met more than a dozen times and stood shoulder to shoulder during Thursday’s military parade here. But the once-vaunted relationship between the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, has come under strain as the economies of their countries have faltered.

Two landmark energy deals signed last year for Russian natural gas to flow to China have made little progress and were barely mentioned when the two men met for talks after watching the show of weapons Thursday on Tiananmen Square. The bilateral trade that was predicted to amount to more than $100 billion this year instead reached only about $30 billion in the first six months, largely because of a reduced Chinese demand for Russian oil.

Putin has enjoyed basking in the stature of Xi, who leads one of the world’s largest economies. But with the recent stock market turmoil in China and the slowest economic growth in a quarter-century, Beijing will be unable to provide the ballast Putin has sought against economic sanctions imposed on Russia by Europe and the United States after its annexation of Crimea, not to mention plummeting oil prices worldwide.

“Russia was dependent on China growing and driving the demand for its commodities: oil, gas and minerals,” said Fiona Hill, a Russia specialist at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “China was an alternative to Europe.”

The linchpin of the relationship between Xi and Putin was a May 2014 accord on a 30-year deal for China to buy natural gas from fields in Eastern Siberia, for a reported $400 billion with first delivery between 2019 and 2021. During the signing in Shanghai, Putin bragged that the deal was an “epochal event,” and expressed relief that Russia, under pressure from European sanctions, would be able to diversify its gas sales. More details here.

Analysts: Beijing Parade a ‘Bazaar’ of Stolen Technology

Saibal Dasgupta, Voice of America

The massive military parade in Beijing this week showcased China’s latest weapons, unveiling many to the public for the first time. But weapons experts say the systems on display showed hallmarks of China’s reputation for stealing technology and adapting it to its requirements.
 
The show involved long, medium and short range missiles, a range of tanks and 200 fighter aircraft. The Chinese government said that all the equipment had been made indigenously, attesting to the success of the country’s military industrial capability and the estimated $145 billion spent on the military in 2015.

“The parade was a bazaar of stolen intellectual property,” said Michael Raska, senior fellow at the Singapore-based Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies.

The researcher said it is possible to identify components and designs in different equipment, which have been sourced from other countries in a dubious manner.

Cloned Technology

Citing a specific example, Raska said, “The HQ-6A launchers that we saw at the parade are based conceptually on the cloned Italian Alenia Aspide missile, itself which is based on the US RIM-7E/F Sparrow.”

Raska said the Chinese J-15 naval fighter is based on adaptation of Russia’s Sukhoi Su-33.
 
The United States has repeatedly accused China in recent years of cybertheft of U.S. technology and weapons systems on a grand scale. U.S. defense contractors have alleged that China’s J-31 stealth fighter is largely based on stolen technology of the U.S. F-35.

The United States last year said that Chinese army hackers had stolen trade secrets from six U.S. nuclear, steel and clean-energy companies, directly resulting in “substantial” loss of jobs, competitive edge and markets.
 
“This is a case alleging economic espionage by members of the Chinese military… to advantage state-owned companies and other interests in China,” then-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said.

But Raska said China has passed the stage where they were “emulators and copiers” and reached what experts describe as the point of “IDAR,” which means identify, digest, absorb and reinvest technologies.
 
Mix-and-Match

Analysts said it is not easy for countries and companies that produced an original technology to prove that it was stolen by China. Component designs are mixed and matched across different categories of weapons before they are remodeled and manufactured in China.
 
China may also be using its diplomatic relationships with countries that have acquired Western weapons and do not mind passing on acquired technologies to Chinese scientists.
 
But even with such technology sharing from countries friendly with China, Jagganath Panda, a research fellow at the Institute of Defense Studies and Analysis, said the country’s investments in its military have paid off.

“We need to accept that China has been hugely successful in developing a strong military industrial production capability,” he said.
 
In recent years China has sold drones, warships, submarines and air defense systems to developing countries, becoming the world’s third largest arms exporter behind the United States and Russia.
 
Indeed, one major point of Thursday’s military parade may have been to display the country’s newest advanced systems to interested buyers, and bolster China’s reputation as an emerging military power.