AFP blip on the news screen today. Take notice. The arrival of a China-Iran container-carrier train is a first, inaugerating cross continental railway trade between China and Europe with Iran at the center of the New (old) Silk Road. Billions in development
“Look at how thin our atmosphere is. This is all there is between humankind and deadly space.” ~ Astronaut Alexander Gerst The Security Horizon New Definitions of National Security Environmental Security — National Security
Atomic scientists look into the future and to the past. With them, we see the capabilities and catastrophic dangers of nuclear weapon modernization, new nukes, more ‘usable’ nukes, an atomic gamesmanship that now looks to space. Add hypersonic China and space MIRVing. Doomsday Clock is at 3 Minutes to Midnight
TW … #ImplementationDay, it’s now time for all—especially Muslim nations—to join hands and rid the world of violent extremism. Iran is ready. — Javad Zarif (@JZarif) January 16, 2016 … Breaking News: (BBC) Four US Prisoners Freed in Iran
Remember the moment there, back at the end of the cold war, when the U.S. could have shifted policy direction away from contined war-time mobilization… The moment passed. The new century has delivered continued crisis. In the holiday season, David Stockman adds his voice to calls for a different vision and wiser security policy
Miscalculation, mistake, a cyber attack or provocation that spirals out of control… the reality of cold war-legacy systems with hair-trigger response imperatives… escalating political conflict and threats… the development and deployment of a next generation of tactical / strategic nuclear weapons, bombers, missiles, submarines… The 21st century scenario is delivering ominous nuclear odds
As the nations of the world offer up in Paris individual INDC plans addressing the threat multiplier of climate change, the sands of time inexorably shift and the New Year arrives…
World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers (WMEAT) was published by the U.S. State Department in December 2015. The report covers the eleven-year period from 2002 through 2012, the most recent year for which final data for many parameters were available in 2015
December 24th, 2015
It is a day for movers and shakers, December 12, 2015. The Paris Agreement on climate change commits almost 200 nations of the world to work toward a shift from fossil fuels to renewables and, in effect, reduces the full-costs/true-costs of fossil-fueled economies, energy conflicts and lost opportunities. The future is closer today
StratDem Op/Ed: A momentous time in which we live and time to face a security issue that affects all of the nearly 200 nations assembled in Paris, an issue of issues, the fate of the planet’s environmental security overarching national security for each nation
Article Five… Ask the question of questions: How will the U.S. administration respond if Russia retaliates militarily against Turkey, a NATO ally
It is a volatile, dangerous mix. The money, weapons and foreign fighters that have flowed into Syria are part of a bigger story of religion and gas/oil supplies, of pipelines through a secular or new religious Syria… it’s about secular Russia versus Salafi-Wahhabism and the House of Saud and its allies. It’s about petrodollars and […]
Asymmetric war is not a modern phenomena. Throughout history tactics and strategies intended to drain the more powerful have been deployed. As a conflict extends, costs rise for the powerful. ‘Other’ threats are set aside. Provocations divert attention and now in our time we are presented with a threat far greater than asymmetric threats of Mujahideen-Jihad(ism)
A meeting at the Shangri-la… China’s President Xi Jinping and Taiwanese counterpart Ma Ying-jeou meet on Nov 7th in Singapore, the first meeting between Chinese and Taiwanese leaders since 1949, over 66 years now
On October 27, 2015, the USS Lassen transited within 12 nautical miles of Subi Reef, one of China’s artificially-built features in the South China Sea. Officially referred to as a “freedom of navigation” (FON) operation, the US destroyer was accompanied by two maritime surveillance aircraft, a P-8A Poseidon and a P-3 Orion
