http://www.eutimes.net/2013/05/russia-ready-for-war-orders-thousands-of-troops-to-border/



Russia Ready For War, Orders Thousands Of Troops To Border

Posted by EU Times on May 29th, 2013

As has been expected since President Putin on 17 May ordered Russian military forces to “immediately move” from Local War to Regional War operational status and to be “fully prepared” to expand to Large-Scale War should either the US or EU enter into the Syrian cινιℓ ωαr, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) is reporting today that thousands of Russian troops have been deployed in “full war mode” and that Israel is now a “major likely target” too.

According to this report, the “surprise alert exercise” Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered last Thursday (24 May) for the Southern Military District involving four regiments of S-300 air defense systems troops combining 8,700 personnel, 185 warplanes and 240 armored vehicles are now positioned to enter into the Syrian War Zone “within hours” to begin offensive and defensive operations.

Even worse, this report continues, Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) troops have likewise been ordered into the Syrian War Zone, including the much feared Zaslon Special Forces units, in order to prepare for the widening of this conflict into what could turn into World War III.

According to all global military experts, this report says, Russia’s Zaslon Special Forces are “so shadowy they make ninjas look like amateurs” and their introduction into this conflict has shifted the balance of power to the point where the European Union (EU) lifted their long standing arms embargo for the radical Islamic rebels (who just hours ago pleaded with the West for immediate weapons shipments) and US President Obama ordered his military commanders to quickly give him a no-fly plan for Syria.

Even though Russia slammed the EU’s plan to arm these Islamic rebels, it also stated that it will not cancel plans to deliver its advanced S-300 air-defence system to Syria despite Western opposition, thus enraging Israel which earlier today threatened an attack on Russian forces attempting to move them into the conflict zone.

To how truly grim the situation has become for the Sunni-Western backed Islamic rebels attempting to overthrow the Assad regime was noted earlier today by a senior Israeli officer interviewed by the Debka File Intelligence News Service who put all these forebodings into words when he said: “A military and strategic catastrophe for the West and Israel is in full flight in Syria, and no one in Washington or Jerusalem is lifting a finger. Israel’s government and military heads never imagined that the Syrian war would take this turn. But we had better wake up at this eleventh hour – before it is too late.”

As we had previously reported about this conflict, the true intentions of this war are being kept from the Western peoples who mistakenly believe it is about “freedom and democracy,” but is, instead, a strategic plan to capture Syria, destroy its Shiite leadership, and then use its territory to build a massive natural gas pipeline from the Gulf States to the EU thus destroying Russia’s stranglehold on European energy supplies.

Qatar, which has the world’s biggest gasfield, has been working since 2009 to build their proposed pipeline through Syria to Turkey and has, in fact, turned the Syrian War into its own conflict, and as we can, in part, read as reported by the Financial Times News Service:

    “In the shell-blasted areas of rebel-held Syria, few appear to be aware of the vast sums that Qatar has contributed – estimated by rebel and diplomatic sources to be about $1bn, but put by people close to the Qatar government at as much as $3bn.

    However, a perception is taking root among growing numbers of Syrians that Qatar is using its financial muscle to develop networks of loyalty among rebels and set the stage for influence in a post-Assad era. “Qatar has a lot of money and buys everything with money, and it can put its fingerprints on it,” says a rebel officer from the northern province of Idlib interviewed by the FT.”

Also being kept from the Western peoples about this conflict are Russia’s true intentions and aims, and which were recently articulated by Fiona Hill who is senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and who said:

    “…this is a prism that [Putin] brought to looking at most conflicts like the conflict in Syria that threaten the sanctity of a state. Mr. Putin actually came in to the presidency, if you can recall, back in ’99-2000 in Russia, just as the second war in Chechnya was starting off. And he saw that as his biggest challenge of keeping the Russian state together, so it didn’t fall down the same path as the Soviet Union into collapse. And Putin was really brutal in pursuing the war in Chechnya. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in the whole course of the conflict, including many civilians.

    The capital city of Grozny in Chechnya was reduced completely to rubble, and Putin thought this was worthwhile because it kept the state together. And over the course of the conflict in Chechnya it morphed in the same way that we’ve actually seen in the war in Syria. It went from a conflict that was mostly focused on political secession from, Chechnya from the Russian Federation, and over time, really took on more of an extremist element, more of Sunni extremist groups who moved in to exploit the conflict and also many people who came from outside, including from Syria, to fight in Chechnya.

    And Putin is now pretty much concerned that we’re going to see a repetition, the collapse of the state in Syria, knock-on effect for conflicts at home for him as well as more broadly across the whole of the Middle East. And yet again, another collapse of the state, that is something that he would like to see avoided at all costs.

    …these all add to Mr. Putin’s interest in Syria itself, but his overwhelming fear is of the collapse of the state. In addition, in fact, to the two elements that you’ve mentioned in terms of weapon sales and also access to this naval facility at Tartus, there’s also a quite sizeable Russian population, 30,000 people roughly, people who are married to Syrians. There’s also a Russian Orthodox Church interest in the Christian communities inside of Syria. And also, Assad did help Putin in the case of Chechnya.

    He prevented a number of groups who were supporting the Chechens, including from a broader ethnic group in Syria that originated in the Russian North Caucasus from collecting money and sending recruits there. But overall, the biggest concern for Putin, having seen what happened in Libya with the fall of Gadhafi and the chaos that’s originated there, as he looks across the rest of the Middle East, he looks at Iraq, he looks at the prospects of Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal, he looks at what’s happening in Egypt and across North Africa now, Putin thinks this is just going to be yet another state collapse that’s going to have very negative knock-on effects for Russia, that has also, from his point of view, been battling with extremism now for several decades.

    …it seems that their biggest concern is of the chemical weapons falling into the hands of the opposition, not that they would be actually used by Assad himself. Of course at this particular point, given what seems to be the inevitable collapse of the state structures, this has ratcheted to the top of our agenda, and I think we should be really pushing the Russians on what then they determine to do if there is evidence – there’s already been speculation about the use of chemical weapons, but if there is evidence there that chemical weapons have been used by either side.”

As Russia has moved its naval fleets into the Mediterranean to warn the West and Israel not to intervene in Syria’s bloody cινιℓ ωαr, and as it prepares to send its most advanced S-300 missiles to protect the Assad regime from “hotheads” intent on intervention, there appears to be no letup in Western capitols as the push for all-out war from these bankster elites continues unabated.

So Israel wants to topple Syria, and Russia is against the idea for several reasons.

I find it interesting that Russia is opposing Israel so openly. Are they not under the Bankers control?

Are we looking at another nαzι Germany?

Or maybe the Bankers are letting this happen on purpose, because they want WW3?

Better make sure your Preps are adequate...

If somebody knows better than I do about these issues, then please let me know. Feel free to correct me. Out of laziness, I almost never read about current events.

It seems that over the past few days/weeks, things have been really escalating in Syria, whose Shi'ite government is currently in a cινιℓ ωαr with Sunni rebels. The European Union had imposed a weapons embargo on the Sunni rebels some time ago, but earlier this week it lifted the embargo in order to support the rebels. The US government will not sell weapons to the rebels for the moment, but says that it fully approves the EU's actions. Also, the vast majority of the Arab world is Sunni, and therefore supports the rebels. This included Qatar, which apparently has some huge interest in ousting the Syrian government (something about a pipeline). The big exceptions are Iraq and the Hezbollah (sp?) which are Shi'ite.

This week, Russia has been involving itself in the Middle East in a heavy-duty way. Syria has 30, 000 Russian residents. Russia just deployed some of its Navy into the Mediterranean Sea to deter the US and the EU from getting involved in Syria's cινιℓ ωαr. It also sent its very best special operations forces, the Zaslon, into Syria. It has also been selling weapons to the Syrian government for years, and it has a naval base (Tartus) in Syria which is its only foothold in the Mediterranean. It has just promised the Syrian government to deliver some S-300s to help fight against the rebels and also, I suppose, to safeguard their foothold in the Mediterranean. The problem is that the Israeli government also promised, just the other day, to make war on Syria if those S-300s ever reach their destination.

So what is going to happen? The EU is going to give weapons to the rebels. Then Russia is going to give S-300s, and other weapons I suppose, to the Syrian government. Then Israel is going to declare war on Syria, and the US is going to follow suit. Iraq, the only other Shi'ite state, is going to enter the war on the Syrian government's side.

So then we'll have The US, Israel, and the EU (with possibly the Sunni governments of the Muslim world?) against Russia, Syria, and Iraq.

What about China? Will China join the Russian alliance? I don't know.

One thing I do know about China is that over the past year of two they have successfully hacked America's most prized military secrets. They now have the plans for our Patriot missiles, Black Hawk helicopters, and F-35's. Some people are saying that the Chinese just saved themselves 25 years and billions of dollars in Research/Development. The American technological advantage over the Chinese has just been greatly reduced. Is China a big ally of Russia? Does anyone on this forum know whose side they would enter on, if WW III erupted?

Check this out!

 http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/05/201352954449403614.html

This says a lot about our problems with China:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/confidential-report-lists-us-weapons-system-designs-compromised-by-chinese-cyberspies/2013/05/27/a42c3e1c-c2dd-11e2-8c3b-0b5e9247e8ca_story.html



Confidential report lists U.S. weapons system designs compromised by Chinese cyberspies



By Ellen Nakashima, Published: May 27

Designs for many of the nation’s most sensitive advanced weapons systems have been compromised by Chinese hackers, according to a report prepared for the Pentagon and to officials from government and the defense industry.

Among more than two dozen major weapons systems whose designs were breached were programs critical to U.S. missile defenses and combat aircraft and ships, according to a previously undisclosed section of a confidential report prepared for Pentagon leaders by the Defense Science Board.
A list of the compromised U.S. weapons designs and technologies

MAY 27

The systems named in a report by the Defense Science Board includes some critical to U.S. missile defense.

Experts warn that the electronic intrusions gave China access to advanced technology that could accelerate the development of its weapons systems and weaken the U.S. military advantage in a future conflict.

The Defense Science Board, a senior advisory group made up of government and civilian experts, did not accuse the Chinese of stealing the designs. But senior military and industry officials with knowledge of the breaches said the vast majority were part of a widening Chinese campaign of espionage against U.S. defense contractors and government agencies.

The significance and extent of the targets help explain why the Obama administration has escalated its warnings to the Chinese government to stop what Washington sees as rampant cyber­theft.

In January, the advisory panel warned in the public version of its report that the Pentagon is unprepared to counter a full-scale cyber-conflict. The list of compromised weapons designs is contained in a confidential version, and it was provided to The Washington Post.

Some of the weapons form the backbone of the Pentagon’s regional missile defense for Asia, Europe and the Persian Gulf. The designs included those for the advanced Patriot missile system, known as PAC-3; an Army system for shooting down ballistic missiles, known as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD; and the Navy’s Aegis ballistic-missile defense system.

Also identified in the report are vital combat aircraft and ships, including the F/A-18 fighter jet, the V-22 Osprey, the Black Hawk helicopter and the Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ship, which is designed to patrol waters close to shore.

Also on the list is the most expensive weapons system ever built — the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which is on track to cost about $1.4 trillion. The 2007 hack of that project was reported previously.

China, which is pursuing a comprehensive long-term strategy to modernize its military, is investing in ways to overcome the U.S. military advantage — and cyber-espionage is seen as a key tool in that effort, the Pentagon noted this month in a report to Congress on China. For the first time, the Pentagon specifically named the Chinese government and military as the culprit behind intrusions into government and other computer systems.

As the threat from Chinese cyber-espionage has grown, the administration has become more public with its concerns. In a speech in March, Thomas Donilon, the national security adviser to President Obama, urged China to control its cyber-activity. In its public criticism, the administration has avoided identifying the specific targets of hacking.

But U.S. officials said several examples were raised privately with senior Chinese government representatives in a four-hour meeting a year ago. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a closed meeting, said senior U.S. defense and diplomatic officials presented the Chinese with case studies detailing the evidence of major intrusions into U.S. companies, including defense contractors.

In addition, a recent classified National Intelligence Estimate on economic cyber-espionage concluded that China was by far the most active country in stealing intellectual property from U.S. companies.
A list of the compromised U.S. weapons designs and technologies

MAY 27

The systems named in a report by the Defense Science Board includes some critical to U.S. missile defense.

The Chinese government insists that it does not conduct ­cyber-
espionage on U.S. agencies or companies, and government spokesmen often complain that Beijing is a victim of U.S. cyberattacks.

Obama is expected to raise the issue when he meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping next month in California.

A spokesman for the Pentagon declined to discuss the list from the science board’s report. But the spokesman, who was not authorized to speak on the record, said in an e-mail, “The Department of Defense has growing concerns about the global threat to economic and national security from persistent cyber-intrusions aimed at the theft of intellectual property, trade secrets and commercial data, which threatens the competitive edge of U.S. businesses like those in the Defense Industrial Base.”

The confidential list of compromised weapons system designs and technologies represents the clearest look at what the Chinese are suspected of targeting. When the list was read to independent defense experts, they said they were shocked by the extent of the cyber-espionage and the potential for compromising U.S. defenses.

“That’s staggering,” said Mark Stokes, executive director of the Project 2049 Institute, a think tank that focuses on Asia security issues. “These are all very critical weapons systems, critical to our national security. When I hear this in totality, it’s breathtaking.”

The experts said the cybertheft creates three major problems. First, access to advanced U.S. designs gives China an immediate operational edge that could be exploited in a conflict. Second, it accelerates China’s acquisition of advanced military technology and saves billions in development costs. And third, the U.S. designs can be used to benefit China’s own defense industry. There are long-standing suspicions that China’s theft of designs for the F-35 fighter allowed Beijing to develop its version much faster.

“You’ve seen significant improvements in Chinese military capabilities through their willingness to spend, their acquisitions of advanced Russian weapons, and from their cyber-espionage campaign,” said James A. Lewis, a cyber-policy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Ten years ago, I used to call the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] the world’s largest open-air military museum. I can’t say that now.”

The public version of the science board report noted that such cyber-espionage and cyber-sabotage could impose “severe consequences for U.S. forces engaged in combat.” Those consequences could include severed communication links critical to the operation of U.S. forces. Data corruption could misdirect U.S. operations. Weapons could fail to operate as intended. Planes, satellites or drones could crash, the report said.

In other words, Stokes said, “if they have a better sense of a THAAD design or PAC-3 design, then that increases the potential of their ballistic missiles being able to penetrate our or our allies’ missile defenses.”

Winslow T. Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Project on Government Oversight, made a similar point. “If they got into the combat systems, it enables them to understand it to be able to jam it or otherwise disable it,” he said. “If they’ve got into the basic algorithms for the missile and how they behave, somebody better get out a clean piece of paper and start to design all over again.”
A list of the compromised U.S. weapons designs and technologies

MAY 27

The systems named in a report by the Defense Science Board includes some critical to U.S. missile defense.

The list did not describe the extent or timing of the penetrations. Nor did it say whether the theft occurred through the computer networks of the U.S. government, defense contractors or subcontractors.

Privately, U.S. officials say that senior Pentagon officials are frustrated by the scale of cybertheft from defense contractors, who routinely handle sensitive classified data. The officials said concerns have been expressed by Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Adm. James A. Winnefeld Jr., the vice chairman, as well as Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency.

“In many cases, they don’t know they’ve been hacked until the FBI comes knocking on their door,” said a senior military official who was not authorized to speak on the record. “This is billions of dollars of combat advantage for China. They’ve just saved themselves 25 years of research and development. It’s nuts.”

In an attempt to combat the problem, the Pentagon launched a pilot program two years ago to help the defense industry shore up its computer defenses, allowing the companies to use classified threat data from the National Security Agency to screen their networks for malware. The Chinese began to focus on subcontractors, and now the government is in the process of expanding the sharing of threat data to more defense contractors and other industries.

An effort to change defense contracting rules to require companies to secure their networks or risk losing Pentagon business stalled last year. But the 2013 Defense Authorization Act has a provision that requires defense contractors holding classified clearances to report intrusions into their networks and allow access to government investigators to analyze the breach.

The systems on the science board’s list are built by a variety of top defense contractors, including Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman. None of the companies would comment about whether their systems have been breached.

But Northrop Grumman spokes­man Randy Belote acknowledged the company “is experiencing greater numbers of attempts to penetrate its computer networks” and said the firm is “vigilant” about protecting its networks.

A Lockheed Martin official said the firm is “spending more time helping deal with attacks on the supply chain” of partners, subcontractors and suppliers than dealing with attacks directly against the company. “For now, our defenses are strong enough to counter the threat, and many attackers know that, so they go after suppliers. But of course they are always trying to develop new ways to attack.”

The Defense Science Board report also listed broad technologies that have been compromised, such as drone video systems, nanotechnology, tactical data links and electronic warfare systems — all areas where the Pentagon and Chinese military are investing heavily.

“Put all that together — the design compromises and the technology theft — and it’s pretty significant,” Stokes said.

Shouldn't this be in the "World War III - Chapter I" section of the forum?