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As I've said in previous posts here, a dialogue and working with the Russians would have been Nobel peace prize material in *any* decade but this one. IMO, the Europeans are weak and cheap. They complain about the Russians but not scared enough apparently to meet their obligations in funding NATO, this allegedly indispensable, absolutely vital organization. "Whoa, whoa there you silly Americans! You mean we actually have to pay for tanks and stuff every year?" There's no chance Merkel is going to win a fourth term in a country overrun by lawlessness brought on by her weak immigration policies.

I do hope Trump voters will hold him to account on his promises or else it would be hypocritical to complain about career politicians. Some things he promised to do in the first 100 days. One year from now there should be 4% economic growth. Illegal aliens - out! Start building the wall and send Mexico the bill. Syrian refugees - banned. A better plan to defeat ISIS. NATO paying their "fair share". Obamacare replaced with a better program. Abortion and gay marriage illegal. Stop and Frisk supported. Taxes cut while increasing defense and infrastructure spending. Clean coal and backing out of climate change agreement. Hillary locked up. The ability to sue the lying media. All proposals and positions he took.

This on top of: The F-35 is hot, expensive garbage; We retired the warplanes that worked. The Abrams tanks, no matter the upgrades, look extremely vulnerable to Kornet missiles; The Russians just unveiled their fifth generation tank that has some technological innovation that would put nearly all NATO tanks at a disadvantage. Our front line attack helicopter is a 1970s design. We still depend heavily on B-52 bombers and A-10 close air support aircraft despite both designs being decades old.

NATO Calls for More Troops for Largest Military Build-up on Russia's Borders Since Cold War NATO will press allies on Wednesday to contribute to its biggest military build-up on Russia's borders since the Cold War as the alliance prepares for a protracted quarrel with Moscow. With Russia's aircraft carrier heading to Syria in a show of force along Europe's shores, alliance defense ministers aim to make good on a July promise by NATO leaders to send forces to the Baltic states and eastern Poland from early next year. http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/1.749274 *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^* Norway welcomes US Marines amid Russian tensions US Marines are coming to Norway -- a move that could send a chill down Russian President Vladimir Putin's spine. The move, which was sought by the Americans and announced Monday by Norway, comes as tensions between the US and Russia are increasing amid the humanitarian disaster in Syria and US assertions of Moscow's involvement in cyber hacks on American political organizations and individuals. Beginning in January, a limited rotational force of approximately 330 Marines will be located in Vaernes, Norway, according to a statement to CNN from the Norwegian Defense Ministry. http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/18/politics/marines-norway-russia/index.html' *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^ U.S. Stuck With Nobody Left to Sanction in Russia Over Syria The U.S. put sanctions on Russia’s main arms exporter, Kremlin aides and the black leather-loving head of a motorcycle gang nicknamed “The Surgeon” after the 2014 invasion of Ukraine. Now, as Washington seeks ways to punish Moscow for its actions in Syria, it may be running out of options. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-26/u-s-stuck-with-nobody-left-to-sanction-in-russia-over-syria *^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^* PENTAGON IGNORED EVIDENCE OF CIVILIAN CASUALTIES IN ISIS STRIKES, HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP SAYS U.S. AUTHORITIES OVERSEEING the war against the Islamic State in Syria have failed to respond to evidence of hundreds of civilian casualties resulting from coalition airstrikes and potential violations of the laws of war, according to a startling new account from Amnesty International. In a press release issued Tuesday night, Amnesty said it has presented the Pentagon with evidence that 11 coalition airstrikes in Syria over the past two years appear to have led to the deaths of as many as 300 civilians — and that so far that evidence has been met with silence.

And US hegemony vs Russian hegemony vs Israeli hegemony. Can't leave those out. ********************************** Clinton’s Slog Deeper into the Big Muddy As Gordon Adams and Lawrence Wilkerson, veterans of the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, observed recently in The National Interest, Clinton’s penchant for military intervention and her deep belief in American exceptionalism put her in tune with Washington’s foreign-policy establishment, which is “why a large number of neoconservative national security experts have endorsed Clinton over Trump.” But the fact that foreign-policy experts agree with her doesn’t make her right. Since their view is increasingly at odds with reality, reality, all it means is that hers is as well. [see Consortiumnews.com’s “Hillary Clinton’s ‘Exceptionalist’ Warpath.”] “This ‘consensus’ judgment of foreign-policy makers,” Adams and Wilkerson write, “which Clinton’s views reflect and support, not only fails to perceive the changed world we live in correctly, but executing its strategy risks producing precisely the opposite result from what is intended. “A no-fly zone in Syria seriously risks putting US military forces at the heart of the conflict, creating the third US invasion in the region since 2001. There is no gain to such a step; there is only high risk of more American lives being lost in an unwinnable war as well as exacerbating regional hostility toward the United States. “Similarly, a direct confrontation with Russia in central Europe and Ukraine increases by orders of magnitude the paranoia already infecting the Russian leadership that the United States intends to put itself right at the periphery of Russia and perhaps beyond. Not for nothing have Russian military exercises for three years running emphasized attacks by NATO – even on Russian territory itself.” The search for stability, in other words, leads to less rather than more. Yet Clinton forges ahead regardless. https://consortiumnews.com/2016/10/24/clintons-slog-deeper-into-the-big-muddy/

Another good article: The Dangers from ‘Humanitarian’ Wars The issues at stake are hardly abstract. The United States is currently engaged in active wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Somalia. It has deployed troops on the Russian border, played push-and-shove with China in Asia, and greatly extended its military footprint on the African continent. It would not be an exaggeration to say — as former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry has recently done — that the world is a more dangerous place today than it was during darkest times of the Cold War. (snip) In a recent essay in the New York Review of Books, Power asks, “How is a statesman to advance his nation’s interests?” She begins by hijacking the realist position that U.S. diplomacy must reflect “national interests,” arguing that they are indistinguishable from “moral values.” What happens to people in other countries, she argues, is in our “national security.” Ambassador Power — along with Clinton and former President Bill Clinton — has long been an advocate for “humanitarian intervention,” behind which the United States intervened in the Yugoslav civil war. Humanitarian intervention has since been formalized into “responsibility to protect,” or R2P, and was the rationale for overthrowing Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. Hillary Clinton has argued forcibly for applying R2P to Syria by setting up “no-fly zones” to block Syrian and Russian planes from bombing insurgents and the civilians under their control. But Power is proposing something different than humanitarian intervention. She is suggesting that the United States elevate R2P to the level of national security, which sounds uncomfortably like an argument for U.S. intervention in any place that doesn’t emulate the American system. Facing Off Against the Kremlin Most telling is her choice of examples: Russia, China, and Venezuela, all currently in Washington’s crosshairs. Of these, she spends the most time on Moscow and the current crisis in Ukraine, where she accuses the Russians of weakening a “core independent norm” by supporting insurgents in Ukraine’s east, “lopping off part of a neighboring country” by seizing Crimea, and suppressing the news of Russian intervention from its own people. Were the Russian media to report on the situation in Ukraine, she writes, “many Russians might well oppose” the conflict. Power presents no evidence for this statement because none exists. Regardless of what one thinks of Moscow’s role in Ukraine, the vast majority of Russians are not only aware of it, but overwhelmingly support President Vladimir Putin on the issue. From the average Russian’s point of view, NATO has been steadily marching eastwards since the end of the Yugoslav war. It is Americans who are deployed in the Baltic and Poland, not Russians gathering on the borders of Canada and Mexico. Russians are a tad sensitive about their borders, given the tens of millions they lost in World War II, something of which Power seems oblivious. What Power seems incapable of doing is seeing how countries like China and Russia view the United States. That point of view is an essential skill in international diplomacy, because it is how one determines whether or not an opponent poses a serious threat to one’s national security. Is Russia — as President Obama recently told the U.N. — really “attempting to recover lost glory through force,” or is Moscow reacting to what it perceives as a threat to its own national security? Russia did not intervene in Ukraine until the United States and its NATO allies supported the coup against the President Viktor Yanukovych’s government and ditched an agreement that had been hammered out among the European Union, Moscow, and the United States to peacefully resolve the crisis. Power argues that there was no coup, but U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the U.S. Ambassador to the Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt were caught on tape talking about how to “mid-wife” the takeover and choose the person they wanted to put in place. (snip) When Hillary Clinton compared Putin to Hitler, she equated Russia with Nazi Germany, which certainly posed an existential threat to our national security. But does anyone think that comparison is valid? In 1939, Germany was the most powerful country in Europe with a massive military. Russia has the 11th largest economy in the world, trailing even France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy and Brazil. Turkey has a larger army. Power’s view of what is good for the Russian people is a case in point. Although one can hardly admire the oligarchy that dominates Russia — and the last election would seem to indicate considerable voter apathy in the country’s urban centers — the “liberals” whom Power is so enamored with were the people who instituted the economic “shock therapy” in the 1990s that impoverished tens of millions of people and brought about a calamitous drop in life expectancy. That track record is unlikely to get one elected. In any case, Americans are hardly in a position these days to lecture people about the role oligarchic wealth plays in manipulating elections. (snip) China is acting the bully in the South China Sea, but it was President Bill Clinton who sparked the current tensions in the region when he deployed two aircraft carrier battle groups in the Taiwan Straits in 1995-96 during a tense standoff between Taipei and the mainland. China did not then — and does not now — have the capacity to invade Taiwan, so Beijing’s threats were not real. But the aircraft carriers were very real, and they humiliated — and scared — China in its home waters. That incident directly led to China’s current accelerated military spending and its heavy-handed actions in the South China Sea. Again, there is a long history here. Starting with the Opium Wars of 1839 and 1860, followed by the Sino-Japanese War of 1895 and Tokyo’s invasion of China in World War II, the Chinese have been invaded and humiliated time and again. Beijing believes that the Obama administration designed its “Asia pivot” as to surround China with U.S. allies. While that might be an over simplification — the Pacific has long been America’s largest market — it is a perfectly rational conclusion to draw from the deployment of U.S. Marines to Australia, the positioning of nuclear-capable forces in Guam and Wake, the siting of anti-ballistic missile systems in South Korea and Japan, and the attempt to tighten military ties with India, Indonesia, and Vietnam. “If you are a strategic thinker in China, you don’t have to be a paranoid conspiracy theorist to think that the U.S. is trying to bandwagon Asia against China,” says Simon Tay, chair of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. (snip) Power’s view that the United States stands for virtue instead of simply pursuing its own interests is a uniquely American delusion. “This is an image that Americans have of themselves,” says Jeremy Shapiro, research director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, “but is not shared, even by their allies.” The “division” between “realists” and R2P is an illusion. Both end up in the same place: confronting our supposed competitors and supporting our allies, regardless of how they treat their people. Although she is quick to call the Russians in Syria “barbarous,” she is conspicuously silent on U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s air war in Yemen, which has targeted hospitals, markets and civilians. The argument that another country’s internal politics is a national security issue for the United States elevates R2P to a new level, sets the bar for military intervention a good deal lower than it is today, and lays the groundwork for an interventionist foreign policy that will make the Obama administration look positively pacifist. https://consortiumnews.com/2016/10/07/the-dangers-from-humanitarian-wars/

I didn't just win, I crushed them worse than Trump crushed Rubio and I didn't even have to talk about my the size of my hands. You know how you can tell? They never once addressed the original topic. Then again, trying to reduce a conversation down to winners and losers defeats the purpose of having a conversation, and I hold the bulk of the blame for that, but it's clear GG and Mags have no interest in anything that challenges their dangerously outdated world view. It began by asking questions about the logic of the US bombing of Syrian troops -- a morally repugnant and incredibly short sighted decision that shredded the cease fire, prolonged the conflict, and risked a shooting war with Russia. It was an aggressive and stupid move on top of being illegal and a defacto act of war. GG and Mags tried to avoid discussing the actual topic because they're allergic to critical thinking when it challenges their world view. I was asked to provide sources, and did, (almost a dozen mainstream sources -- which don't include the dozens of other sources on this topic I've posted throughout the last year -- that verified it is indeed a proxy fight and we're arming, funding and training "moderate" rebels, I provided other sources which showed those "moderate" rebels are AQ/ISIS branches re-branded to avoid muddling the War on terror narrative) and in turn these sources were glossed over or ignored completely. In the midst of trying to change the topic to anything other than the original issue, namely that the US committed a stupid act of war and war crime in Syria for no discernable reason other than to perpetuate the conflict, GG tried to lecture me about what I do for a living and define Google as a "media" company (both of which he's 100% wrong about and knows it but won't say he's wrong because his ego is too big, and I find that hilarious) and Mags compared Alex Jones to the Intercept as if they're the same and completely got every fact about Syria's oil potential 100% wrong, proving he doesn't have the framework to have a serious discussion about geopolitics. They're both avowed neocons who are more interested in propping up their failed and ultimately disastrous philosophy than they are about having an honest discussion about the state of Syria and the actors engaged there. The entire subject was derailed because neither of them wanted to address the actual question (and because I like to egg people on). A sure sign of two people who've lost and know it. 100%. The aftermath is going to be worse than the war itself because of who will be in charge. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel, Turkey, France, US, and UK are all funding rebel groups and arming them (but Mags says it's not a proxy war!). It's the third secular state to be taken down by Saudi/US backed alliances in the past decade, only this time Russia and Iran aren't going away without a fight. Which begs the question: What's the end game now? Russia is threatening to shoot down US planes if they interfere, and we have HRC and her neocon/liberal hawk supporters suggesting a no-fly zone over Syria which, of course, is an overt act of war and would ultimately lead to a shooting war with Russian pilots in the area. It's quite literally the same playbook W deployed in Iraq and HRC deployed in Libya -- only this time Russia is overtly supporting the other side... what's the saying about those who fail to learn from history? We do not have a mission in Syria -- even GG and Mags agree with that (common ground!). Our troops on the ground there openly complain about the "moderates" they're working with being (and I quote) "Motherfukking Jihadist monsters", the vast majority of Syrians are opposed to the "moderate" rebels who, by and large, are all coming in from other areas of the ME and aren't home-grown rebels as the US media likes to portray them. Of course questioning the motives and logic and causation of the conflict only leads certain people to think you're a Putin supporter. So, beware the jingoists on here. Another good (and lengthy) article here: The Forgotten Libyan Lessons and the Syrian War Most intelligent Americans – Republicans as well as Democrats – now accept that they were duped into the Iraq War with disastrous consequences, but there is more uncertainty about the war on Libya in 2011 as well as the ongoing proxy war on Syria and the New Cold War showdown with Russia over Ukraine. Today, many Democrats don’t want to admit that they have been manipulated into supporting new imperial adventures against Libya, Syria, Ukraine and Russia by the Obama administration as it pulls some of the same propaganda strings that George W. Bush’s administration did in 2002-2003. Yet, as happened with Saddam Hussein in Iraq, we have seen a similar hysteria about the evil doings of the newly demonized foreign leaders with the predictable Hitler allusions and vague explanations about how some terrible misdeeds halfway around the world threaten U.S. interests. Though people mostly remember the false WMD claims about Iraq, much of the case for the invasion was based on protecting “human rights,” spreading “democracy,” and eliminating a supporter of Palestinians who were violently resisting Israeli rule. The justification for aggression against Iraq was not only to save Americans from the supposed risk of Iraq somehow unleashing poison gas on U.S. cities but to free the Iraqis from a brutal dictator, the argument which explained why Bush’s neocon advisers predicted that Iraqis would shower American troops with rose petals and candies. (snip) After a frenzied media reaction to Gaddafi’s supposedly genocidal plans, Western nations argued that the world had a “responsibility to protect” Libyan civilians, a concept known as “R2P.” In haste, the United Nations Security Council approved a resolution to protect civilians by imposing a “no-fly zone” over eastern Libya. But the subsequent invasion involved U.S.-coordinated air strikes on Gaddafi’s forces and European Special Forces on the ground working with anti-Gaddafi rebels. Before long, the “no-fly zone” had expanded into a full-scale “regime change” operation, ending in the slaughter of many young Libyan soldiers and the sodomy-with-a-knife-then-murder of Gaddafi. As Western leaders celebrated — Secretary Clinton exulted “We came, we saw, he died” — Libyans began the hard work of trying to restructure their political system amid roaming bands of heavily armed jihadist rebels. Soon, it became clear that restoring order would not be easy and that Gaddafi was right about the presence of terrorists in Benghazi (when some overran the U.S. consulate killing U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.) Libya, which once had an envious standard of living based on its oil riches, slid into the status of failed state, now with three governments competing for control and with jihadist militias, including some associated with the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, disrupting the nation. The result has been a far worse humanitarian crisis than existed before the West invaded. (snip) Of course, it’s always easier to detect the manipulations and deceptions in hindsight. In real time, the career pressures on politicians, bureaucrats and journalists can overwhelm any normal sense of skepticism. As the propaganda and disinformation swirl around them, all the “smart” people agree that “something must be done” and that usually means bombing someone. We are seeing the same pattern play out today with the “group think” in support of a major U.S. military intervention in Syria (supposedly to impose the sweet-sounding goal of a “no-fly zone,” the same rhetorical gateway used to start the “regime change” wars in Iraq and Libya). We are experiencing the same demonization of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin that we witnessed before those other two wars on Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi. Every possible allegation is made against them, often based on dubious and deceitful “evidence,” but it goes unchallenged because to question the propaganda opens a person to charges of being an “apologist” or a “stooge.” (snip) In that sense, the findings by the U.K. parliament’s foreign affairs committee regarding Libya deserved more attention than they received because they demonstrated that the Iraq case was not a one-off anomaly but rather part of a new way to rationalize imperial wars. And the findings showed that these tactics are bipartisan, used by all four major parties in the U.S. and U.K.: Bush was a Republican; Blair was Labour; Obama a Democrat; and Cameron a Conservative. Though the nuances may differ slightly, the outcomes have been the same. The U.K. report also stripped away many of the humanitarian arguments used to sell the Libyan war and revealed the crass self-interest beneath. For instance, the French, who helped spearhead the Libyan conflict, publicly lamented the suffering of civilians but privately were eager to grab a bigger oil stake in Libya and to block Gaddafi’s plans to supplant the French currency in ex-French colonies of Africa. The report cited an April 2, 2011 email to Secretary of State Clinton from her unofficial adviser Sidney Blumenthal explaining what French intelligence officers were saying privately about French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s real motives for pushing for the military intervention in Libya: “a. A desire to gain a greater share of Libya oil production, b. Increase French influence in North Africa, c. Improve his internal political situation in France, d. Provide the French military with an opportunity to reassert its position in the world, e. Address the concern of his advisors over Qaddafi’s long term plans to supplant France as the dominant power in Francophone Africa.” (snip) In another reprise from the Iraq War run-up, the U.K. inquiry determined that Libyan exiles played key roles in exaggerating the dangers from Gaddafi, much like the Iraqi National Congress did in fabricating supposed “evidence” of Saddam Hussein’s WMD. The report said: “We were told that émigrés opposed to Muammar Gaddafi exploited unrest in Libya by overstating the threat to civilians and encouraging Western powers to intervene. In the course of his 40-year dictatorship Muammar Gaddafi had acquired many enemies in the Middle East and North Africa, who were similarly prepared to exaggerate the threat to civilians.” Qatar’s Al-Jazeera satellite channel, which currently is hyping horror stories in Syria, was doing the same in Libya, the U.K. committee learned. “Alison Pargeter told us that the issue of mercenaries was amplified [with her saying]: ‘I also think the Arab media played a very important role here. Al-Jazeera in particular, but also al-Arabiya, were reporting that Gaddafi was using air strikes against people in Benghazi and, I think, were really hamming everything up, and it turned out not to be true.’” (snip) “The investigation concluded that much Western media coverage has from the outset presented a very one-sided view of the logic of events, portraying the protest movement as entirely peaceful and repeatedly suggesting that the regime’s security forces were unaccountably massacring unarmed demonstrators who presented no security challenge. … “In short, the scale of the threat to civilians was presented with unjustified certainty. US intelligence officials reportedly described the intervention as ‘an intelligence-light decision’. We have seen no evidence that the UK Government carried out a proper analysis of the nature of the rebellion in Libya. … “It could not verify the actual threat to civilians posed by the Gaddafi regime; it selectively took elements of Muammar Gaddafi’s rhetoric at face value; and it failed to identify the militant Islamist extremist element in the rebellion. UK strategy was founded on erroneous assumptions and an incomplete understanding of the evidence.” If any of this sounds familiar – echoing the pre-coup reporting from Ukraine in 2013-2014 or the current coverage in Syria – it should. In all those cases, Western diplomats and journalists put white hats on one side and black hats on the other, presenting a simplistic, imbalanced account of the complicated religious, ethnic and political aspects of these crises. The U.K. report also exposed how the original goal of protecting civilians merged seamlessly into a “regime change” war. The report said: “The combination of coalition airpower with the supply of arms, intelligence and personnel to the rebels guaranteed the military defeat of the Gaddafi regime. On 20 March 2011, for example, Muammar Gaddafi’s forces retreated some 40 miles from Benghazi following attacks by French aircraft. If the primary object of the coalition intervention was the urgent need to protect civilians in Benghazi, then this objective was achieved in less than 24 hours. “The basis for intervention: did it change? We questioned why NATO conducted air operations across Libya between April and October 2011 when it had secured the protection of civilians in Benghazi in March 2011. … We asked [former chief of defense staff] Lord Richards whether the object of British policy in Libya was civilian protection or regime change. He told us that ‘one thing morphed almost ineluctably into the other’ as the campaign developed its own momentum. … The UK’s intervention in Libya was reactive and did not comprise action in pursuit of a strategic objective. This meant that a limited intervention to protect civilians drifted into a policy of regime change by military means.” (snip) “Political options were available if the UK Government had adhered to the spirit of [u.N.] Resolution 1973, implemented its original campaign plan [to protect civilians] and influenced its coalition allies to pause military action when Benghazi was secured in March 2011. Political engagement might have delivered civilian protection, regime change and reform at lesser cost to the UK and to Libya.” (snip) Despite these findings, the Obama administration and its allies are considering an escalation of their military intervention in Syria, which already has involved arming and training jihadists who include Al Qaeda militants as well as supposedly “moderate” fighters, who have aligned themselves with Al Qaeda and handed over sophisticated American weaponry. The U.S. military has spearheaded a bombing campaign against Al Qaeda’s spinoff, the Islamic State, inside Syria. But the Obama administration sometimes has put its desire to oust Assad ahead of its supposed priority of fighting the Islamic State, such as when U.S. air power pulled back from bombing Islamic State militants in 2015 as they were overrunning Syrian army positions at the historic city of Palmyra. Now, with Syria and its Russian ally resorting to intense bombing to root Al Qaeda and its allies, including some of those U.S.-armed “moderates,” from their strongholds in eastern Aleppo, there is a full-throated demand from the West, including virtually all major media outlets, to impose a “no-fly zone,” like the one that preceded the “regime change” in Libya. While such interventions may “feel good” – and perhaps there’s a hunger to see Assad murdered like Gaddafi – there is little or no careful analysis about what is likely to follow. The most likely outcome from a Syrian “regime change” is a victory by Al Qaeda and/or its erstwhile friends in the Islamic State. How that would make the lives of Syrians better is hard to fathom. More likely, the victorious jihadists would inflict a mass bloodletting on Christians, Alawites, Shiites, secular Sunnis and other “heretics,” with millions more fleeing as refugees. Among the Western elites – in politics and media – no lessons apparently have been learned from the disaster in Iraq, nor from the new British report on the Libyan fiasco. https://consortiumnews.com/2016/10/06/the-forgotten-libyan-lessons-and-the-syrian-war/

For the sake of your blood pressure, GG, do not read or click on the link. It's an Intercept article: U.S. Defense Contractors Tell Investors Russian Threat Is Great for Business The National Defense Industrial Association, a lobby group for the industry, has called on Congress to make it easier for U.S. contractors to sell arms abroad to allies in response to the threat from Russia. Recent articles in National Defense, NDIA’s magazine, discuss the need for NATO allies to boost maritime military spending, spending on Arctic systems, and missile defense, to counter Russia. Many experts are unconvinced that Russia poses a direct military threat. The Soviet Union’s military once stood at over 4 million soldiers, but today Russia has less than 1 million. NATO’s combined military budget vastly outranks Russia’s — with the U.S. alone outspending Russia on its military by $609 billion to less than $85 billion. And yet, the Aerospace Industries Association, a lobby group for Lockheed Martin, Textron, Raytheon, and other defense contractors, argued in February that the Pentagon is not spending enough to counter “Russian aggression on NATO’s doorstep.” Think tanks with major funding from defense contractors, including the Lexington Institute and the Atlantic Council, have similarly demanded higher defense spending to counter Russia. Stephen Hadley, the former National Security Advisor to President George W. Bush now serving on the board of Raytheon, a firm competing for major NATO military contracts, has argued forcefully for hiking defense budgets and providing lethal aid to Ukraine. Hadley said in a speech last summer that the U.S. must “raise the cost for what Russia is doing in Ukraine,” adding that “even President Putin is sensitive to body bags.”

So, US nukes out, Russian Air Force in. Turkey leaving NATO can't be too far behind, right?

Think it's time to jettison the turks. They're hardly an "ally." Arm the kurds, boot them out of NATO, and away we go.

Turkey signals joint defense plan with Russia Foreign minister says NATO member will establish military, intelligence system http://aa.com.tr/en/politics/turkey-signals-joint-defense-plan-with-russia/625918 Turkish admiral 'claims asylum in US' after failed coup http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37032171

I'm not ignorant of its historical and geographical importance. The question is why did the west take such an aggressive stance at that juncture specifically and not in 2007, '08, '09... etc. Regardless of what Putin was doing -- and he was doing plenty -- actively working to bring Ukraine into the EU and threatening to bring them into NATO were both aggressive policies to undertake -- and seemingly short sighted. What other outcome could they have possibly expected other than a decisive response from Russia? What was the larger view?

No, the conversation that was ongoing started in 2013, not my perspective. Difference. You're already twisting things to fit a pre determined narrative in your head... but continue: I don't ascribe all evils to the neocons. I also don't think everything the US does is evil. Never said that or even anything close to that. I said, and believe, the neocon philosophy to be bunk because it is fundamentally incompatible with how our political system works in reality. The people pushing that agenda are smart enough to realize that fundamental truth, which makes me immediately suspicious that they must have other motives besides "wishing" other people a better life. And, they do. That's a huge difference from what you're projecting onto me, but again, you want to have an entirely different conversation. Now we're getting somewhere even though you're somehow operating under the misguided assumption that I'm a Putin supporter... I do not, and have not, denied Russia has been an aggressive actor in the past, the recent past. What's we're discussing is that they've seemingly shifted geopolitical strategy in the past 24 months -- starting with the decision not to take the Ukraine when a) they could have and b) everyone expected them to. They've been the most stabilizing force in the Middle East as well in recent months seemingly out of the blue. I don't say these things to laud Russia, but to question Russia. Disagree as I do with 43's policies, 44's have been a continuation of all its worst elements while piling on even more stupidity -- including taking aggressive postures backed only by empty words in places like Syria and the Ukraine. The point I'm harping on, the actual topic I'm discussing is why the west forced Putin's hand in the Ukraine. We can disagree on the origin of the coup all night long -- put that aside, as I said I'll concede that point to you for the sake of a conversation -- but what you're still not addressing is what was the strategic goal from the west's perspective of threatening to bring Ukraine into NATO and the EU? They had to have known Putin could not allow it, just from a realistic national security perspective. Did they expect Putin would do nothing? These are questions I have, because to me it seems really short sighted and frankly an outdated approach to geo-political security.

I missed this yesterday, apologies: Not true, but again, you don't like to read what's actually written before you jump to conclusions. My initial comment was that over the past two years Putin has been one of, if not the most stabilizing geopolitical force in the world and that should be terrifying. You may consider that ignoring history but it's not. It's acknowledging there's been a shift in Moscow due to a multitude of reasons -- chief among them our current foreign policy or lack thereof. Tom responded by pointing out the Russians invaded the Ukraine within that period. Which is true. My answer pointed out that, despite the hype by the western media (which is every bit as propagandized as Putin's as we're learning with each and every leak), the west forced the issue in the Ukraine with our moves behind the scenes. Put aside the question of whether or not the coup was western backed (it was, but I'll concede it for the purposes of this conversation), what did the west think it would gain by not only bringing Ukraine into the EU but NATO? Both of which were actual talking points before the flare up. That would have cut Russia off from it's largest navel base, it's entire Baltic Fleet, and have left the Black Sea flanked with two NATO members.That's an aggressive plan, one that was clearly in motion. How is that a good strategy in the modern world? How is it anything other flicking the nose of a country with the second most nuclear weapons? Disagree all you want about who started the fuss in the Ukraine -- but that's not the issue really being discussed. It's just what you latched onto because you believe regime change is done by wishing for a better life for people and refuse to acknowledge that the US has done dirty deeds more than once in the past. The larger issue being discussed is that the west has been a destabilizing force in recent history: Iraq, Syria, Libya -- that excludes "controversial" events in the Ukraine and Afghanistan because it was a **** show well before we got there. Russia has done it's share of destabilizing as well, despite your interpretation I've never denied this and have a long history posting critical things about Putin in many, many threads. Hell, I started half of them. However, there's been a marked change in their approach over the past 24 months or so. Evidence of this is abundant, starting with the fact they didn't take all of the Ukraine when they easily could have and everyone in the west was predicting it. So, if you care to address the actual issue being discussed, I'd be happy to hear it. What was the long term play for the West? What would you think the US would have done had the roles been reversed? You really want to go down with that ship, don't ya? Too bad. You're pretty open minded and sharp on most topics, but you're dead wrong on the viability of the neocon agenda. It's never going to work, it's only going to continue the cycle of contained regions of conflict for profit... which is what the neocons really want anyway. They've convinced you it's for the greater good but it's not. It's for their good. They don't want change. They don't want democracy and freedom for the people they claim to be liberating. They want new markets. New wars. New ways to make more money. It's funny you can lecture people about being had by Putin while you're still clinging to a philosophy that has been proven to be an utter failure over the past two decades. This is very true.

There are conflicting accounts regarding just what assurances were given to Gorbachev at the time of German reunification and later to Yeltsin concerning Nato expansion. According to Secretary Baker there were neither assurances nor guarantees, but there is also substantial evidence that the Russians were given comfort on the issue and they may be right in thinking that their reasonable expectations were disappointed at a time when they were unable to do anything about it. Maybe a promise was broken, but of course the Russians too break promises all the time, for example the guarantee of Ukraine's territorial sovereignty as provided in the memorandum of December, 1994. I wonder if Putin would have invaded the Ukraine if it was still loaded with nuclear weapons or indeed if Russia's Ukranian cronies had not systematically deteriorated its conventional military capabilities following the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Regardless of what has been said and done, it bears mentioning that Nato is a defensive alliance. It does not pose a military threat to Russia in the absence of Russian military aggression against a member state. And why is it that former Soviet republics would seek membership in Nato? Were they really planning to invade Russia or were they worried that their newly acquired freedoms might again be trampled under the Russian jackboot as soon as the Kremlin rediscovered its mojo. And why shouldnt sovereign nations be allowed to enter into whatever alliances or agreements they regard as aligned with their national interest? Because their aspirations are somehow incongruous with an outdated map of an empire that no longer exists? Having said that the Russian reaction to recent developments in the Ukraine is understandable (if not justified) and the case is an interesting example of how history and geography condition a People's perceptions. There are no natural barriers insulating Russia from Europe. The Ukraine in particular is a verdant plain and highway leading directly to the heart of Russia, Moscow. A highway that has been travelled by invading armies looking to enslave the Russian People. As it happens, Russia is the place where those invading armies have gone to die, due to the legendary endurance of the Russian footsoldier and the Russian People who together have written some of the most heroic pages in the book of human history. If Hitler proved anything it might just be that the Slavs are the master race. Just look at a map of Europe. Ukraine is huge. Add that piece to the former Soviet republics that have melted through the Kremlin's grasp and you might understand how, in comparison to what was previously its reach, the loss of Ukraine would be a pill too hard for a proud people to swallow. The fact that the Ukrainians themselves are a Slavic nation with a large ethnic Russian population only makes matters worse. As for Putin, I don't think he is that hard to figure out. He doubtless sees himself as the successor to Peter, Catherine and Alexander the First. Why shouldnt he. He is the President of Russia after all. I'm sure that animates his sense of duty. He was also a witness to the destruction of the most recent Russian empire of which, professionally speaking, he was an agent. He may be forgiven his bitterness. Thing is though that Putin is not merely the promoter of Russian interests, he is also a product of Russian political culture. If he was going to achieve anything he was going to have to buy into the Russian way of doing things and the Russian way of doing things reflects systemic instability (and the need to struggle against it) and paranoia. Putin is at once the master and the slave of Russia. The Russians are a great People who have for a long time been poorly governed and that is largely the fortuitous result of geography and history. Democratic institutions have never taken root in that country as they did in the UK, in France and in America. What you then wind up with is the rule of a gang the members of which need to be bought. It is inefficient and corrupt. Who can blame the youth of the Ukraine for wanting something better.

What choice did the west give Putin? Since Clinton tore up the Malta deal in the 90s, NATO has been encroaching on Russian borders for almost 30 years. This accelerated (as you know) under 44 and with the deployment of the missile defense systems throughout Europe. The west forced Putin's hand, or broke the camel's back depending on how you wish to phrase it, when it financed (with $5b US) and backed the coup which ousted the pro-Russian (yet, democratically elected) government and supported in its place literal neo-nazis who may or may not (but definitely did) start the coup by massacring 22 people in Odessa in February of '14. The western media won't touch that story, because they can't, but there's ample concrete evidence in the form of leaked transcripts, voice recordings and emails that prove this beyond any reasonable doubt. Had Putin sat on his hands, he would have had a new NATO member a mere 6 hour drive from Moscow, lost their Black Sea bases, and had the Baltic flanked by NATO members in Turkey and the Ukraine. It would have been a strategic nightmare for Russia. Viewed in that light it's much more accurate to describe Putin's actions in the Ukraine as a stabilizing measure in a geo-political sense. It blocked Ukraine from joining NATO, removed a neo-fascist government that had been brutalizing its way to power (backed by western money and training), and prevented a powder keg from being created just hours from the capital of the world's second largest nuclear power. The full on Russian invasion never happened -- and never was going to happen. Russia wants strategic balance restored, and they are certainly willing to fight for it, but it's clear from their actions in the Ukraine that global domination isn't their end game. (A lot of first hand evidence can be found in this doc here, source the information presented rather than relying on the doc itself: )

Several non-nuclear NATO members train to deliver nuclear weapons (Italy, Germany, the Netherlands,) and have small stockpiles of US weapons in their own countries. And NATO is in charge of maintenance, storage, and determining policy regarding such. But ultimately usage is determined by the US (since we control the permissive action links that allows the bombs to go "boom!") Depending on who you talk to, that makes those nations nuclear powers and the bombs a NATO stockpile...or makes them US weapons at NATO's disposal if needed. I think the latter's the preferred legal interpretation (the former is preferred more by socialists farther left than Bernie), and personally I prefer it as well, on the simple fact that the weapons are under our ultimate control and not NATO's. If Turkey were to try that argument...at best the argument would cloud the issue slightly. Even if you could rationally argue "They're on our land, so they're ours" or "They're a NATO asset, we're part of NATO, so they're ours," they're still governed by multiple international agreements that say they're not, including the nuclear sharing agreements in force with NATO.

Thanks for the informative post. Same. This is a stupid question -- since I know the nukes are ours -- but are there such a thing as "NATO" owned nukes? Meaning, would Turkey have any pretense or way to claim ownership of them as a NATO member and refuse to let them leave the country?

What if airspace is closed ? No flights in or out? "Late Saturday night all access to the military base by NATO personnel was apparently restricted and airspace over the area has been closed."

Yeah, and there is supposed to be a scheduled inspection as well. Other sources (even less trustworthy than RT) report Dunford is there to negotiate a western withdraw from the airbase -- but I don't buy that. NATO needs Incirlik to continue air assaults on ISIS targets (Tom might know what the backup base would be if NATO were forced to leave Turkey entirely), but they might be trying to figure out a way to get the nukes out of the area in a way that doesn't encourage Putin to take an even more aggressive posture in the region. Actually, Tom or anyone who would know, how would you even go about moving the nukes from the base? How exposed would that kind of operation be to outside forces who might want to disrupt or take the nukes for themselves?

The lockdown at Incirlik follows a massive wave of protests on Thursday when pro-Erdogan nationalists took to the streets yelling “death to the US” and called for the immediate closure of the Incirlik base. It is unclear if Erdogan is naive enough to think that he can out-bluff and out-bully the US and keep Incirlik hostage until he gets Gulen repatriated by Obama on a silver platter, a hostage “tit for tat” we first described two weeks ago. http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/breaking-alert-nato-nuke-base-surrounded-by-heavily-armed-turkish-police-houses-up-to-90-thermonuclear-weapons_07302016 I would not turn over Gulen, a moderate to those extremists. JMO

http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/breaking-alert-nato-nuke-base-surrounded-by-heavily-armed-turkish-police-houses-up-to-90-thermonuclear-weapons_07302016 Another story on current happenings at incirlik

1,000s Turkish forces surround NATO’s Incirlik air base for ‘inspection’ amid rumors of coup attempt https://www.rt.com/news/354042-turkish-police-incirlik-nato-coup/#.V507ZdNZuK4.reddit Video from outside the base: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgzrkF2I0ug

This is ripping off Chris Rock. He said that the solution is not banning guns, and instead, raising the price of ammunition to obscene levels. To wit(NSFW): Oh, and the next one is strikingly both prophetic and hilarious("She put the entire free world at risk! ): https://youtu.be/QKi1ePbpi4c?t=179 Oh, I see, so rather than being able to live in peace, no matter where one lives...the only alternative is to move. Great. And what happens when one can't afford to move? Or, is barely hanging on at the job they have, and can't get one in the mystical "other city"...where they supposedly won't be troubled by the same problem? But no! Your "solution" is everybody GTFO now? Yeah, um that's pretty much what has turned rust belt cities into ghost towns. Your solution is literally what was "white flight". Now? "Flight" has become diverse! Black people now splitting from the same, failed, decades-of-Democratic-rule cities as whites already have Great Plan! You're so good at this, you should tell us all about your plans for Global Warming, and Obamacare! WTF are you thinking? A P90 looks like some futuristic welding tool from Star Trek, so its not dangerous at all! I mean, the fact that it is way more accurate than an AK, easier to use, definitely easier to maintain than an AR, shoots 30% more rounds per minute than an AK, and leaves the AR-15, at 180 RPM vs 900, in the dust? Nah, nothing wrong here. Oh, and did I mention it has a 50 round clip? So, you know: reloading. Oh, wait, you don't know about reloading? Yeah, try firing an AR-15 for an extended period, say, long enough to wipe out an entire school. You're almost certainly going to encounter a jam. Every single person who has ever dealt with the AR model knows about jamming, and also, the firing pin retaining pin with is a tiny little thing, which if lost, turns the weapon into an expensive club. We are talking about banning weapons/designs that NATO has either never adopted, because they are inferior(AK-47), or has moved on from, because they are annoying(AR-15). Yet, nothing about the new weapons? Why? Because, once again: most people know NOTHING about guns. The chicken is the best. Oh and so that some of you might get a clue? The P-90 is the first weapon in the 2nd row. See? It doesn't look dangerous at all!

Who does Trump think he is expecting each NATO member to meet the expectations agreed to upon joining the organization? Why the next thing you know he'll question the monies the US pays to the United Nations! I hope he never attempts to devise a cost/benefit ratio on that outfit.