At the center of the conditions we have Iran, Russia, China and for extra measure, more aggressive terror factions and cells.
We had Afghanistan won until Barack Obama declared a termination to hostilities and combat roles. Now, conditions include:
Islamic State militants who say they are based in Afghanistan have in recent days promoted their alleged successes in the country. And on Wednesday they issued a call for Muslims to “take up arms” against Jews and Christians and “fight them in whatever way we can.”
The message in the Pashto language was the third time in less than a week that IS has highlighted its activities in Afghanistan on its website. In recent days, U.S. and Afghan officials have warned of an increased IS presence in Afghanistan and of its threat to Central Asia.
FNC: Russia has helped Iran deliver weapons into Syria twice a day over the past 10 days, western intelligence sources tell Fox News. Those sources say Russian cargo planes transported the weapons. The planes were spotted earlier this month on the tarmac at the Russian air base in Latakia, Syria’s primary port city. The flights are not registered, and are in breach of two United Nations Security Council resolutions which impose an arms embargo on Iran.
Fox News is told the increased Russian transport of Iranian weapons is being coordinated by Qassem Soulimeini, the head of the Iranian Al-Quds force, as well as President Vladimir Putin and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. An Iranian civilian airline, Mahan Air, is flying military personnel into Syria several times each day from Tehran to Latakia.
Tehran’s support has been crucial to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s survival. Besides significant financial aid to Assad, Iran has acknowledged that its Revolutionary Guard officers are on the ground in Syria in an advisory role. There have been multiple Iranian officers and soldiers killed in fighting in Syria, though Tehran denies the presence of actual combat troops in the country.
In part: The United States has upgraded the security at its two largest overseas nuclear weapons bases, Incirlik Air Base in Turkey and Aviano Air Base in Italy. Incirlik is undergoing a particularly extensive upgrade, a move connected to its vulnerable location close to the Syrian border.
Recent satellite images from Incirlik and Aviano show double-fence security perimeters—a sealed-off area where intruders can be shot—being built around the nuclear weapons storage areas. At Incirlik the garage holding the trucks that service the warheads is also being improved, along with the trucks themselves. Incirlik’s newly upgraded area contains 21 vaults, each holding two to three warheads, and will be equipped with lighting, cameras, and intrusion-detection devices. In addition to soldiers already guarding the enclosure, manned vehicles will also patrol space between the two fences around the clock.
Combined, the Incirlik measures amount to a major security upgrade. “They didn’t use to have the special double-fence security perimeter with sensors and the patrol road around the nuclear weapons vaults,” explained Hans Kristensen, a nuclear expert at the Federation of American Scientists, who first reported the Incirlik and Aviano activity on his blog. “When the vaults were constructed in the nineties, they were considered so secure that the special security perimeter that had previously been used for nuclear weapons storage areas was no longer considered necessary.” He added that it’s unclear whether the upgrade is a direct result of volatility in the region or related to changed Pentagon security requirements.
More Cold War Part 2 Indicators:
Just as Russia has increased its military activism in the Middle East, the Kremlin is turning down the temperature in eastern Ukraine in recent weeks, as the September 1 cease-fire is largely holding and larger caliber weaponry is being pulled back. The October 2 Paris meeting of the leaders of France, Germany, Ukraine, and Russia—the so-called Normandy Format—yielded a modest but positive result in postponing unsanctioned elections in the separatist areas. Yet the ultimate goal of returning Ukraine’s sovereignty over its eastern border still seems distant. Russia’s shadow therefore continues to loom over NATO’s eastern flank.
Against this geopolitical backdrop, 28 NATO defense ministers agreed on a plan to expand the NATO Response Force (NRF) to 40,000 troops, more than double its current size. This implements one of the principal elements of the program launched by NATO leaders at the September 2014 Wales Summit to upgrade NATO’s rapid-response capacity and to begin adapting the alliance to the challenges from Russia in the east. Among the other key elements in NATO’s adaptation are the creation of a high-readiness “spearhead” task force—Secretary General Stoltenberg announced October 8 that lead nations for the spearhead force have been identified through 2022 (France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Turkey, and the United Kingdom), demonstrating resolve by NATO members to put resources behind its top-priority initiative. Thus far, the United States has deferred a decision to become a lead nation for the spearhead force, but the Obama administration’s European Reassurance Initiative invested $1 billion in Fiscal Year 2015 in strengthening European defense, enabling U.S. force rotations, security assistance, and pre-positioning of equipment in Europe. Sustaining U.S. investments beyond FY15 will be essential to ensuring European—and transatlantic—security.
Need more? al Qaeda in the Maghreb, deploying more special forces to Iraq against ISIS, additional success and growth of ISIS in Afghanistan, terror plan or Asia discovered, the Taliban is aiding and harboring al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
There is more, but you understand that since America under Barack Obama has retreated, the enemies are exploiting the weakness and lack of strategy by the West, where the United States used to lead.
