[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyUYGzKXu0Q[/youtube]
What about US, Russia, China versus EU(rope)?
United States versus Europe? Nope, Europe has already been conquered by the United States financially, politically, militarily, and economically. Europe is a huge cash cow for the United States via the European Union. I could however see an invasion of Europe by Russia if things became too intense.
My optimum WW3 scenario is US vs China, not US vs Russia.
Theyr all fascists, and Russia has less rights than US, but I dont feel they are worthy of getting bombed. Also, Russia seems to be against the banker NWO idiocracy.
My optimum WW3 scenario is US vs China, not US vs Russia.
Theyr all fascists, and Russia has less rights than US, but I dont feel they are worthy of getting bombed. Also, Russia seems to be against the banker NWO idiocracy.
It will be United States and Europe versus an alliance of Russia and China.
The real question would be whether Russia and China would turn on each other eventually concerning various scenarios. Would such an alliance be a fragile one?
Either way a new world war on the horizon threatens all on planet earth…
Let me see.
For choices of president,
We have a corrupt felon, bought off and obedient to corrupt bankers, a war monger who will probably start WW3
Or
A fascist who who wants to take away our rights, institute the gestapo, and murder family members of criminals.
America sure is good.
Let me see.
For choices of president,
We have a corrupt felon, bought off and obedient to corrupt bankers, a war monger who will probably start WW3Or
A fascist who who wants to take away our rights, institute the gestapo, and murder family members of criminals.
America sure is good.
The choice is all an illusion. This will all become quite clear a year or two after the election.
I swear Americans have voting or political amnesia.
Most people are always cheated.
Most people are always cheated.
Most people are idiotic, mindless, and obedient followers.
While over the last several months, tensions over the South China Sea territorial dispute have mostly focused on the diplomatic war of words between China and the US, Reuters reports that in a move that is likely to substantially “raise tensions with Beijing”, Vietnam has secretly fortified several of its islands in the disputed territory with Israeli-made EXTRA mobile rocket launchers 'capable of striking China’s runways and military installations across the vital trade route."The launchers have been hidden from aerial surveillance and they have yet to be armed, but could be made operational with rocket artillery rounds within two or three days, Reuters notes adding that intelligence shows Hanoi has shipped the launchers from the Vietnamese mainland into position on five bases in the Spratly islands in recent months
The move, which analysts say “is the most significant defensive move Vietnam has made on its holdings in the South China Sea in decades”, is designed to counter China’s build-up on its seven reclaimed islands in the Spratlys archipelago. Vietnam’s military strategists fear the building runways, radars and other military installations on those holdings have left Vietnam’s southern and island defenses increasingly vulnerable.
Vietnam’s Deputy Defence Minister, Senior Lieutenant-General Nguyen Chi Vinh, told Reuters that it has reserved the right to take any such measures. “It is within our legitimate right to self-defense to move any of our weapons to any area at any time
While over the last several months, tensions over the South China Sea territorial dispute have mostly focused on the diplomatic war of words between China and the US, Reuters reports that in a move that is likely to substantially “raise tensions with Beijing”, Vietnam has secretly fortified several of its islands in the disputed territory with Israeli-made EXTRA mobile rocket launchers 'capable of striking China’s runways and military installations across the vital trade route.”The launchers have been hidden from aerial surveillance and they have yet to be armed, but could be made operational with rocket artillery rounds within two or three days, Reuters notes adding that intelligence shows Hanoi has shipped the launchers from the Vietnamese mainland into position on five bases in the Spratly islands in recent months
The move, which analysts say “is the most significant defensive move Vietnam has made on its holdings in the South China Sea in decades”, is designed to counter China’s build-up on its seven reclaimed islands in the Spratlys archipelago. Vietnam’s military strategists fear the building runways, radars and other military installations on those holdings have left Vietnam’s southern and island defenses increasingly vulnerable.
Vietnam’s Deputy Defence Minister, Senior Lieutenant-General Nguyen Chi Vinh, told Reuters that it has reserved the right to take any such measures. “It is within our legitimate right to self-defense to move any of our weapons to any area at any time within our sovereign territory,” he said.
Hanoi is “discretely” putting the launchers in place as it expected tensions to rise in the wake of the landmark international court ruling against China in an arbitration case brought by the Philippines, foreign envoys said. The ruling last month, stridently rejected by Beijing, found no legal basis to China’s sweeping historic claims to much of the South China Sea. Vietnam, China and Taiwan claim all of the Spratlys while the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei claim some of the area.
As reported before, China has rejected the arbitration ruling saying that it has “indisputable sovereignty over the Spratly islands and nearby waters,” China’s Foreign Ministry said in a faxed statement on Wednesday. "China resolutely opposes the relevant country illegally occupying parts of China’s Spratly islands and reefs and on these illegally occupied Spratly islands and reefs belonging to China carrying out illegal construction and military deployments.”
The United States is also monitoring developments closely. “We continue to call on all South China Sea claimants to avoid actions that raise tensions, take practical steps to build confidence, and intensify efforts to find peaceful, diplomatic solutions to disputes,” a State Department official said.
Carl Thayer, an expert on Vietnam’s military at the Australian Defence Force Academy, said the deployment showed the seriousness of Vietnam’s determination to militarily deter China as far as possible.
“China’s runways and military installations in the Spratlys are a direct challenge to Vietnam, particularly in their southern waters and skies, and they are showing they are prepared to respond to that threat,” he said. “China is unlikely to see this as purely defensive, and it could mark a new stage of militarization of the Spratlys.”
Cited by Reuters, Trevor Hollingsbee, a former naval intelligence analyst with the British defense ministry, said he believed the deployment also had a political factor, partly undermining the fear created by the prospect of large Chinese bases deep in maritime Southeast Asia. “It introduces a potential vulnerability where they was none before - it is a sudden new complication in an arena that China was dominating,” he said.
And now that China has a “credible” reason to further build up its military on the various reefs and inslands in the contested territory, it will do just that, making the likelihood of an all out military conflict, whether intentional or accidental, that much higher, further rising the possibility of an armed conflict in the region involving not just the Pacific Rim nations, but the US on one side, and Russia - as documented previously - on China’s. We hope that we will never have to find out if such a conflict could serve as the progenitor to another global war.
For all the focus on terrorism, one of the most striking features of the last decade is that the risk of war between the world’s major countries has returned. For the first time since the fall of the Berlin wall, military thinkers in the United States, Europe and Asia are putting serious thought into what such a conflict might look like.
For a world with no shortage of nuclear weapons, that’s alarming. As I wrote last month, there is now not just a credible – if still limited – risk of conflict between Russia and NATO states, but also a real risk any such war would go nuclear.
Last week, U.S.-based think tank RAND Corporation – which also studied the prospects of war in the NATO member Baltic states – unveiled its latest thinking on what a potential clash between the United States and China would look like. The report is not direct U.S. government policy – although RAND has long been regarded as a major generator of thought for the U.S. military – but it does push the envelope further than much that has gone before.
For all the focus on terrorism, one of the most striking features of the last decade is that the risk of war between the world’s major countries has returned. For the first time since the fall of the Berlin wall, military thinkers in the United States, Europe and Asia are putting serious thought into what such a conflict might look like.
For a world with no shortage of nuclear weapons, that’s alarming. As I wrote last month, there is now not just a credible – if still limited – risk of conflict between Russia and NATO states, but also a real risk any such war would go nuclear.
Last week, U.S.-based think tank RAND Corporation – which also studied the prospects of war in the NATO member Baltic states – unveiled its latest thinking on what a potential clash between the United States and China would look like. The report is not direct U.S. government policy – although RAND has long been regarded as a major generator of thought for the U.S. military – but it does push the envelope further than much that has gone before.
The report stresses that while premeditated war between Washington and Beijing ”is very unlikely,” the mishandling of disputes like the multiple territorial confrontations between China and U.S. allies such as Japan and the Philippines are a “danger” that “cannot be ignored.”
RAND examined two different scenarios, one for an inadvertent conflict taking place in the present day and one in 10 years from now, assuming Beijing’s military and economic buildup continues at roughly its current rate. China will substantially close its military gap with the United States over the next decade, it predicts – but the fundamental dynamics of how things will play out might not be hugely different.
Even now, the People’s Liberation Army is seen as having the ability to give a bloodied nose to U.S. forces in the region. Washington could expect to lose an aircraft carrier and multiple other surface warships in the opening stages, RAND warns, citing Chinese advances in ballistic and guided missiles as well as submarines.
The report does not estimate the number of human casualties, but they could be substantial. The loss of an aircraft carrier or several major surface warships could easily cost thousands of lives in an instant.
At the same time, it’s also generally assumed that both Beijing and Washington would have considerable success with cyber attacks.
As another recent report points out, China’s effectiveness would difficult to gauge – not least because it has not participated in a major conflict since invading Vietnam in 1979.
The real decision for Washington would be how much military force to commit to the Asia Pacific theater. Other threats and responsibilities would not have gone away – the Middle East would almost certainly still be a mess and the risk of Russian action in Europe might actually be heightened. Still, the United States would have considerable reserves of aircraft and ships in reserve.
Whether a conflict only endured days or weeks or dragged on for a year or more, Washington would almost certainly retain the ability to strike widely at Chinese targets across the battle space – including, in at least a limited way, into mainland China. Over time, Beijing could face the destruction of most, if not all, of its major surface naval forces. Its relatively primitive submarines would also likely be fairly easy picking, RAND predicts, although that will probably be less true by 2025.
The real battle of attrition, however, would be economic – as it almost always is when great powers confront each other. On that front, the consequences for China could be devastating.
Washington and Beijing are each other’s most significant trading partners. The report estimates that 90 percent of that bilateral trade would cease if the two were in direct military confrontation for a year. That would hurt both sides, but the United States could likely continue trade with much of the rest of the world while almost all imports and exports to China would have to pass by sea through a war zone.
Perhaps most importantly, China might find itself cut off from vital external energy sources while Washington’s energy supply chain would be far less affected.
While RAND estimates a year-long Asian war would take 5-10 percent off U.S. gross domestic product, it believes China’s economy could shrink by up to 25 percent.
These are good reasons why war should never happen. Even if miscalculations pushed both countries to the brink, it’s all but impossible to make a logical argument for either side to push things over the edge. The danger, therefore, would seem to be primarily ill-conceived actions that might cause a World War One-style escalation.
In the case of the United States and China, RAND’s analysts say they believe nuclear escalation would likely be avoided even if both sides fought prolonged naval and air battles. That’s a major departure in Western military thinking from the days of the Cold War, when nuclear escalation was seen an almost inevitable consequence of any direct conventional clash.
Whether that’s certain is a different question. Wars tend to develop their own horrific internal logic and momentum, and the temptation to move to more powerful weapons is ever present.
For now, there’s no evidence that Beijing has adopted Moscow’s thinking on “de-escalatory nuclear strikes,” using a single nuclear warhead in an attempt to shock a Western adversary into standing down and ending the conflict. But it’s possible to imagine that happening.
It’s becoming increasingly important to consider scenarios like these. It we don’t, the unthinkable might quietly – or worse still-- suddenly and brutally become reality.
I don’t trust the Chinese. I mean I don’t trust any of them, but especially the Chinese… There’s something about them
The U.S. State Department has approved the potential sale of more than 130 Abrams battle tanks, 20 armored recovery vehicles and other equipment, worth about $1.15 billion, to Saudi Arabia, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.
The approval for land force equipment coincides with Saudi Arabia leading a military coalition in support of Yemeni forces loyal to the exiled government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi who are trying to oust Iran-allied Houthi forces from the capital, Sanaa. Human rights groups have criticized the coalition’s air strikes because of the deaths of civilians.
The U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which implements foreign arms sales, said that General Dynamics will be the principal contractor for the sale.
“This sale will increase the Royal Saudi Land Force’s (RSLF) interoperability with U.S. forces and conveys U.S. commitment to Saudi Arabia’s security and armed forces modernization,” the agency said in a notice to lawmakers posted on its website.
Lawmakers have 30 days to block the sale, although such action is rare.
Saudi Arabia and its mostly Gulf Arab allies intervened in Yemen’s civil war in March 2015 after the Houthi movement had pushed the Hadi administration into exile in Saudi Arabia.
On Tuesday, the Saudi-led military coalition conducted air strikes on Sanaa for the first time in five months, residents said, after U.N.-backed peace talks to end the conflict broke down at the weekend.
Medics said nine civilians were killed in a strike on a potato chip factory in the Nahda district of the capital.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch called on the United Nations General Assembly in June to suspend Saudi Arabia from the U.N. Human Rights Council until the military coalition stops killing civilians in Yemen.
“The Saudi-led coalition’s campaign in Yemen has been devastating for civilians (and) the U.S. should be suspending arms sales to Saudi Arabia, not approving more,” said Kristine Beckerle, a researcher with Human Rights Watch.
U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut who has been critical of arms sales to Saudi Arabia, said in a statement that he was concerned about the high civilian casualty rate in Yemen. Murphy said Saudi Arabia had “largely backed away from” the fight against Islamic State militants “and I’d like to see them commit to rejoin that fight as part of major new military sales.”
Former C.I.A. Deputy Michael Morell On CBS
“The Iranians were making us pay a price. We need to make the Iranians pay a price in Syria. We need to make the Russians pay a price.”
He went on to explain making them “pay the price” would mean killing Russians and Iranians, and said he wants to make Syrian president Bashar al-Assad uncomfortable.
“I want to go after those things that Assad sees as his personal power base. I want to scare Assad.”