Russia’s space nuclear weapon that does kill people but can paralyze global communication; what else can it do?

Russia’s space nuclear weapon that does kill people but can paralyze global communication; what else can it do?

    Sunday, February 18, 2024   No comments

The American newspaper "The New York Times" revealed concerns within the Biden administration after intelligence reports indicating that Russia was preparing to place a nuclear weapon in space. These concerns prompted US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to ask China and India to try to talk with Russia.

The newspaper says that American spy and intelligence agencies have discovered that Russia is working on a new type of space weapon that could threaten the thousands of satellites that keep the world connected, and that a launch is being prepared from Moscow to install a “nuclear weapon” in space that would cause a global catastrophe.

It is true that this weapon will not cause the destruction of humans, such as what would happen when used on Earth, but it will destroy satellites scattered in their various orbits, which will cause the collapse of global communications systems, and make everything from emergency services to cell phones to the regulation of generators and pumps It malfunctions, according to estimates by US agencies.

The newspaper adds: Debris resulting from the explosion will spread throughout low Earth orbit and make navigation difficult if not impossible for everything from Starlink satellites, used for Internet communications, to spy satellites.

US intelligence agencies believe that even if Russia were to place a nuclear weapon in orbit, US officials agree in their assessment that the weapon would not be detonated, but would remain like a time bomb in low orbit, as a reminder from Putin that if he was subjected to pressure sanctions or military resistance to his ambitions in Ukraine or elsewhere, it may destroy the economies of countries without targeting humans on the ground, according to what was reported by the New York Times.

The newspaper said that these estimates prompted US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to talk about them with his Chinese and Indian counterparts during the Munich Security Conference, which is currently underway.

 “Blinken’s message to China and India was clear: any nuclear explosion in space would destroy not only American satellites, but also those in Beijing and New Delhi,” the newspaper reports.

 Washington is counting on Beijing and New Delhi to exert the necessary pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin, because the latter despises Washington and does not accept its intervention, especially since the escalation of tensions between the two sides since the invasion of Ukraine.

 Some intelligence officials have objected to sharing much of what the United States knows because details of the Russian program remain top secret, US officials said.

 But others argued that the United States needed to share enough to convince China and India of the seriousness of the threat.

 During the Munich meetings, the two men (the foreign ministers of China and India) took in the information, and the former repeated China's usual phrases about the importance of the peaceful use of outer space, the officials said.

 Representative Michael Waltz, Republican of Florida and a member of the House Intelligence Council, said: “Relying on our biggest adversary to deliver messages to Moscow is not a great exercise, but in this case, if the reports are true, China will have a special interest in getting the message across.”

A First: More than 800 Officials from ally nations across the Atlantic have united to publicly criticize their governments over the war on Gaza

A First: More than 800 Officials from ally nations across the Atlantic have united to publicly criticize their governments over the war on Gaza

    Friday, February 02, 2024   No comments

More than 800 officials in the US, the UK and the EU released a public letter of dissent against their governments’ support of Israel in its war in Gaza, The New York Times reported on Friday.

According to current and former officials spearheading or supporting the initiative, the letter marks the first time that officials from ally nations across the Atlantic have united to publicly criticize their governments over the war.

The officials argue that they are speaking up because they, as civil servants, consider that it is their duty to help improve policy and to work in their nations’ interests, and that they are speaking up because they believe their governments need to change direction on the war.

“Our governments’ current policies weaken their moral standing and undermine their ability to stand up for freedom, justice and human rights globally,” The New York Times quoted the letter as saying.

There is a “plausible risk” that their governments’ policies are contributing to “grave violations of international humanitarian law, war crimes and even ethnic cleansing or genocide,” it added.

According to the newspaper, the document protected the identities of signers as they fear reprisal, said one organizer, an official who has worked in the State Department for more than 20 years.

But about 800 current officials have given approval to the letter as it has quietly circulated among employees at the national level in multiple countries, the official was quoted as saying.

The effort reveals the extent to which pro-Israel policies among American, British and European leaders have stirred dissent among civil servants, including many who engage in foreign policies of their governments.

Noting that some 80 of the signers are from American agencies, with the biggest group being from the State Department, one organizer said the governing authority most represented among the signers is the collective EU institutions, followed by the Netherlands and the US.

Media Review: The National Interest calls on Biden to return soldiers from Syria and Iraq: stop making them targets

Media Review: The National Interest calls on Biden to return soldiers from Syria and Iraq: stop making them targets

    Wednesday, January 03, 2024   No comments

The American magazine "National Interest" criticized the foreign policy of US President Joe Biden, and his involvement of the United States in endless conflicts at the expense of the interests of the nation and the well-being of the army.

In an article entitled “Joe Biden Should Stop Treating American Soldiers as Targets” published, Tuesday, the magazine stated that attacks on American bases in Iraq and Syria with mortar shells, drones, and missiles have become routine (more than 100 since October 17). It caused dozens of injuries.

The magazine considered that the claim of National Security Council spokeswoman Adrian Watson that “the president does not place a higher priority than protecting American soldiers” is clear nonsense, because they are still being injured in Iraq and Syria without clear strategic goals, and that 2,500 Americans are stationed in Iraq, And 900 others are in Syria, with no clear purpose other than to be targets for enemies.

The magazine feared a larger strike that might hit a crowded building, with many American deaths expected, forcing the United States to fight another war in the Middle East, questioning the legal justification for occupying Syrian territory, mocking the slogan of “self-defense” on this front.

It considered that Washington's policy, supported by successive administrations and Congress, aimed at starving the Syrian people in a futile attempt to pressure Damascus, is morally abhorrent and practically foolish.

The magazine concluded by emphasizing the need for American military personnel in Iraq to also return to their homeland, instead of remaining a suitable target, considering that “the security of the United States is not served by illegal intervention and endless war, and that America is best served by avoiding involvement in conflicts that are of little importance to us.” "For the United States."

Asymmetrical urban warfare: How the war in Gaza has been fought

Asymmetrical urban warfare: How the war in Gaza has been fought

    Sunday, December 31, 2023   No comments

Guerilla warfare is not new. Asymmetrical warfare is common especially when indigenous communities resist invading state armed forces’ formations. The Algerian example often comes to mind when French occupation forces were resisted for decades by Algerian liberation groups (Mojahidin) and eventually forcing France out by the end of the first half of the 20th century.

A similar but also uniquely different struggle involved the Mujahideen groups of Afghanistan who resisted the Soviet Union forces in the 1970’s and 1980’s. That Afghanistan war was also asymmetrical war in that formal military formations of the Society Union faced off with non-state factions. However, that conflict was also a proxy-war between the two superpowers of the time, the United States and the Soviet Union.

In many ways, the US-USSR Afghanistan paradigm was reproduced in Syria during the second decade of this century with US-Russia facing off indirectly. These two proxy-wars, however, are different from the Algerian model and the current Gaza war in that the latter two did not have a superpower for a sponsor or supporter. The Algerian and Gazan resisters were mostly on their own. Because of the geopolitical circumstances and the fact that Gaza is essentially an urban area, the fighting factions in Gaza have developed and adopted unique strategies to counter the 18th most powerful military in the world.

Review of many of the videos produced and released by the armed factions in Gaza show a unique style of warfare never seen in past armed conflicts. The videos depict Man versus Tank kind-of-confrontation, where the local armed groups attack the superior war machines in zero-distance combat.

This video (streamed on Aljazeera TV), and posted on social media, shows how the war is fought in Gaza:

Tank drives on or near the tunnel without seeing it. Tank parks just meters away from the tunnel entrance. Qassam fighter opened the tunnel hatch, took the explosive device, walked over to the tank, placed device, activated it, walked back to the tunnel, then the blast.

 

The Wall Street Journal: Nature and quantity of American weapons provided to Israel since October 7

The Wall Street Journal: Nature and quantity of American weapons provided to Israel since October 7

    Saturday, December 02, 2023   No comments

The American Wall Street Journal reported, in a report, about the United States supplying the Israeli occupation entity with large bunker-busting bombs, among tens of thousands of other weapons and artillery shells, during the ongoing war on Gaza.

The newspaper quoted American officials as saying, “The wave of weapons, including approximately 15,000 bombs and 57,000 artillery shells, began shortly after the October 7 attack, and has continued in recent days.”

According to an internal US government list of weapons, which US officials transferred to the Wall Street Journal, among the munitions that Washington transferred to Israel were more than 5,000 unguided Mk82 bombs, and more than 5,400 bombs with Mk82 warheads. A 2,000-pound Mk84 bomb, about a thousand GBU-39 small-diameter bombs, and about 3,000 JDAM bombs, which convert unguided bombs into guided bombs.

The United States also sent nearly 57,000 155 mm artillery shells and 100 advanced BLU-109 bombs weighing about 900 kilograms to Israel.

But Washington did not previously reveal the total number of weapons it sent to Israel, nor the transfer of 100 BLU-109 bombs.

American officials say that “the failure to disclose these weapons is a result of the fact that Israeli weapons come through a different mechanism, including military sales.”

Diplomatic challenge

According to the Wall Street Journal, this airlift of ammunition worth hundreds of millions of dollars, especially on C-17 military cargo planes flying from the United States to Tel Aviv, shows the diplomatic challenge facing the Biden administration, as “This aid could undermine the administration’s pressure to protect civilians.”

It is noteworthy that "Israel" is the largest recipient of American foreign military funding. Most of this aid comes in the form of arms grants, while it also has access to some of the most advanced US military technology.

American support also represents about 15% of the entity’s annual defense budget, according to the Axios website.

In this context, Elias Youssef, an American weapons transfer expert at the Stimson Center, said, “American weapons are widely used in the current Israeli operations in Gaza.”

The Pentagon had stated that it "will not place restrictions on how the Israeli army uses weapons provided by the United States."

A few days ago, the White House requested the removal of restrictions on all categories of weapons and ammunition that Israel is allowed to access from American weapons stockpiles stored in Israel itself, according to the American “The Intercept” website.

Also, Bloomberg newspaper reported that the Pentagon has increased its military aid to Israel, especially laser-guided missiles for the fleet of Apache warplanes, 155 mm shells, night vision devices, bunker-busting ammunition, and new military vehicles.

It is worth mentioning that Washington asks the occupation “army” to limit civilian casualties, and supports a humanitarian cessation of fighting, despite the unlimited military support it provides to “Israel”, which is constantly met with rejection by a large segment of American officials.

State Department official resigns over Biden administration’s handling of Israel-Hamas conflict

State Department official resigns over Biden administration’s handling of Israel-Hamas conflict

    Friday, October 20, 2023   No comments

A State Department official in the bureau that oversees arms transfers resigned this week in protest of the Biden administration’s decision to continue sending weapons and ammunition to Israel as it lays siege to Gaza in its war with Hamas.

In his resignation letter, Josh Paul, who has been the director of congressional and public affairs for the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs for over 11 years, said the Biden administration’s “blind support for one side” was leading to policy decisions that were “shortsighted, destructive, unjust and contradictory to the very values we publicly espouse.”

“The response Israel is taking, and with it the American support both for that response and for the status quo of the occupation, will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people,” he wrote, adding, “I fear we are repeating the same mistakes we have made these past decades, and I decline to be a part of it for longer.”

Josh Paul bio and credentials:

(Former) Director at U.S. Department of State

Previously - and for the last decade - Director of Congressional & Public Affairs, Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, U.S. Department of State, with responsibility for shaping and implementing an holistic communications strategy in support of U.S. security assistance, arms transfers, and global defense partnerships. Previously - consultant for the US & UK governments in Iraq & Palestine on institutional development and security sector governance; Hill alum (Steve Israel, D-NY); stints in Army Staff (G8) & OSD Policy (ME).