Scary with all this going on…no one is talking to each other especially when Defense Secretary Ash Carter says we will not cooperate or coordinate with Russia.
Carter: “Now, the Russians originally said they were going in to fight ISIL and al-Nusra and other terrorist organizations. However, within days of deploying their forces, the Russians began striking targets that are not any of these groups. I have said repeatedly over the last week that we, the United States, believed this is a fundamental strategic mistake and that it will inflame and prolong the Syrian civil war. We have not and will not agree to cooperate with Russia so long as they continue to pursue this misguided strategy. We’ve seen increasingly unprofessional behavior from Russian forces. They violated Turkish airspace, which as all of us here made clear earlier this week, and strongly affirmed today here in Brussels, is NATO airspace.” The full remarks by Carter while in Belgium are here.
Confluence or Conflating
Kearsarge ARG Deploys for Europe, Middle East Operations
The Kearsarge Amphibious Ready Group and 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit departed Oct. 6 from the East Coast for a deployment to the Middle East.
The more than 4,000 sailors and Marines will support theater security cooperation and maritime security operations and provide an added crisis response capability to U.S. 5th and 6th Fleet areas of operations.
The ARG/MEU includes amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge (LHD-3), amphibious transport dock ship USS Arlington (LPD-24), amphibious dock landing ship USS Oak Hill (LSD-51),
Kearsarge and the 26th MEU last deployed from March to November 2013, during a time of great unrest in the region. Kearsarge and USS San Antonio (LPD-17) spent a lot of time in the northern part of the region – operating in the Mediterranean out of Rota, Spain, and in the northern Red Sea – while USS Carter Hall (LSD-50) spent time operating independently near Bahrain and Djibouti.
Upon returning home, Kearsarge spent five months in maintenance at BAE Systems Norfolk Ship Repair before beginning sea trials last summer. Kearsarge served as the flagship in the Bold Alligator 2014 amphibious exercise last fall.
Rocket Launch with Secret Payload
United Launch Alliance aims to launch its second Atlas V rocket in less than a week with a blastoff planned Thursday morning from California’s Central Coast.
The rocket is targeting a liftoff at 5:49 a.m. PT from Vandenberg Air Force Base, carrying a classified mission for the National Reconnaissance Office.
There’s a 70% chance of acceptable weather at Vandenberg’s Space Launch Complex-3. The full launch window has not been disclosed.
“We are excited and ready to take on our first Atlas launch of 2015,” said Col. J. Christopher Moss, commander of the 30th Space Wing, in a statement Wednesday. “Our team and mission partners have put a lot of hard work into preparing for this important mission for our nation.”
Amateur spacecraft observers speculate that the rocket is carrying a pair of satellites updating the Naval Ocean Surveillance System, or NOSS.In addition to the primary mission, the rocket’s Centaur upper stage will deliver a group of 13 experimental and student-developed CubeSats to orbit.
The tiny spacecraft include nine missions sponsored by the NRO and four by NASA. Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Services Program was responsible for securing the ride for the NASA-sponsored payloads known as ElaNA-12.
A successful launch would keep ULA on track to return to Cape Canaveral for an Oct. 30 launch of the Air Force’s next Global Positioning System satellite on an Atlas V. The booster for that mission was delivered to the Cape on Tuesday.
An Atlas V last Friday successfully delivered Mexico’s Morelos-3 communications satellite to orbit, completing ULA’s 100th launch since Boeing and Lockheed Martin formed the joint venture in December 2006.And Wednesday, in the first launch since an Antares rocket exploded shortly after takeoff on Oct. 29, 2014, a sounding rocket successfully blasted off from NASA’s Wallops Space Facility in Virginia.
“It wasn’t an easy decision,” an Iranian official source said when asked about Russia’s intervention in Syria. “The Russians were certain that if they did not move now, the next war they would fight would be inside their borders; this is about Russia’s national security before being about Syria. Therefore, a decision to start this pre-emptive war was taken by the Kremlin.”
For decades, Syria has been one of Russia’s main allies in the Middle East. The collapse of the Soviet Union didn’t change anything in this regard. Moscow continued to support Damascus with whatever necessary to keep the old empire’s last balcony on the warm waters of the Mediterranean Sea.
Russia Gets Back in the Game
In 2011, amid the eruption of the revolution in Syria, the Russians started feeling the heat. It was almost obvious to them that the fall of the regime in Damascus would lead to serious changes in Russia’s status in the Middle East; thus this wasn’t an option to even think about, and everything possible should be done to maintain the regime and keep it breathing, should this be using the veto in the UN Security Council, sending arms and ammunitions, or as we are witnessing today, intervening militarily and fighting to keep the status quo. Russia is not the only ally of the Syrian government; Iran also has been supporting President Bashar al-Assad.
Russia and Iran have not previously been allies. They share common interests, common allies and common rivals; however, this doesn’t necessarily mean they act as allies. In Syria, their common interest has been — and still is — keeping their common ally, the regime, alive. Even within the Syrian regime, there are different views among the ranks on how to deal with both countries; there are officials who are seen as “Iranians” and others as “Russians.” This is prompted by fears among one wing that the Islamic Republic’s agenda in Syria involves Islamization of society, while the other wing that prefers the Iranians sees them as very reliable since they were the first to roll their sleeves up in the fight for the regime’s existence. Yet, this is only a matter of preferences, and nothing more.
