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Admiral: U.S. Military in Pacific Rapidly Gearing Up for War With China by 2027

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U.S. military forces in the Pacific are deploying large numbers of drone weapons and increasing overall force readiness in preparation for a potential 2027 war with China, according to the commander of the Indo-Pacific Command.

Adm. Sam Paparo stated in a new naval journal article that his forces are rapidly building drone weapons and armed robots for use in both air and sea as part of “Project 33,” named for Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the service’s 33rd CNO.

The strategic guidance plan calls on the Navy to increase its warfighting power “in the fastest time,” according to a Navy fact sheet, with the key goal of preparing “for the possibility of war with the People’s Republic of China by 2027.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to use force to annex Taiwan by 2027. U.S. defense officials said the PLA is honing its forces for a possible invasion or blockade of the self-ruled island by that date.

The second objective of the plan is enhancing the Navy’s long-term military advantages. Adm. Paparo stated that China, Russia and North Korea are all threatening stability and security throughout the Indo-Pacific. (Read more from “Admiral: U.S. Military in Pacific Rapidly Gearing Up for War With China by 2027” HERE)

WAR ALERT: Multiple Indicators China Preparing for Imminent Hostile Action, Setting Off Alarm Bells in U.S.

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By Bill Gertz. What intelligence agencies call “indications and warnings” — signs of potential hostile military or other actions against the United States — are being detected from inside China. Analysts suggest these movements reveal Beijing may be preparing for some type of military or covert action. . .

The account @TruthAbtChina on July 25 tweeted video from Beijing and Shanghai showing posters instructing people how to go to underground bunkers if an alarm signals a military attack . . .

Another source in Asia reported that Taiwanese ham radio operators were picking up indicators that China may be preparing to take some type of action against Taiwan’s outer islands, which are closer to the mainland than the main Taiwan island, which sits around 100 miles off the southern coast.

A third indicator comes from a businessman with contacts inside China who says locals there are reporting unusual movements of equipment and shifts in production at some factories away from producing civilian products.

There are also rumors of a major political power struggle in Beijing pitting Chinese President Xi Jinping against political elements behind former Chinese Vice President Zeng Qinghong — an ally of former leader Jiang Zemin and part of the Shanghai political faction. (Read more about China preparing for military action HERE)

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More Reasons China Preparing for Conflict with U.S.

By Alice Su and Tracy Wilkinson. Fears are rising on both sides of the Pacific that the U.S. and China could be headed for a total breakdown of relations and even outright conflict within the next few months.

As the two powers ordered the closure of each other’s consulates in Houston and Chengdu last week amid allegations of espionage, Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo called for the end of “engagement,” a policy that has defined U.S.-China relations for nearly five decades and is considered one of the Republican establishment’s most important foreign policy achievements in recent history. . .

In addition to the consulate shutdowns, the U.S. last week charged two Chinese nationals with hacking for Chinese intelligence agencies and arrested a Chinese researcher who had been hiding in the San Francisco consulate. She was part of a long-standing network of Chinese industrial spies spanning 25 cities, the U.S. Justice Department claimed.

The two countries have also clashed in recent weeks over tech, trade, student and journalist visas, the coronavirus outbreak, the South China Sea, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong. . .

“I am extremely worried about the arrogant inflexibility of China in the South China Sea,” [said Orville Schell, director of the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations], pointing also to Xi’s stances on Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan and Hong Kong so far. To Xi, those are “core interests,” Schell said: “End of story. Shut up. No negotiation.” (Read more about China preparing for conflict with the U.S. HERE)

Meet the Bigger Killer Than Wars of the 20th Century

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Between 1917 and 2017, there were an estimated 200 million deaths from war.

Yet, according to scientists, a simple, inexpensive mineral supplement added with water to the diet of the world’s population could save the lives of 450 million people from heart attacks and strokes.

In fact, as early as 1977 – 40 years ago – the National Academy of Science reported that the combination of magnesium and water would prevent 150,000 U.S. deaths from strokes and heart attacks per year. In 2013, another researcher found the simple formula would prevent 4.5 million deaths worldwide.

Do the math – 150,000 times 100 equals 15 million; 4.5 million times 100 years equals 450 million.

In 2009, the World Health Organization collected and compiled research studies on the effects of calcium and magnesium in the diet, with consideration of adding the mineral supplements to drinking water supplies. (Read more from “Meet the Bigger Killer Than Wars of the 20th Century” HERE)

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Senior NATO Officer: West Will Likely Be at War this Summer, Lucky if it’s not Nuclear

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Photo Credit: AP Is the world going mad? Military posturing is quietly reaching new extremes in Europe, the Mediterranean and the South China Sea. And the provocative bluster has just reached new heights.

The source was anonymous. But the mouthpiece has a measure of credibility. High profile military analyst and former US Naval War College lecturer John Schindler tweeted last week: “Said a senior NATO (non-US) GOFO to me today: ‘We’ll probably be at war this summer. If we’re lucky it won’t be nuclear.’ Let that sink in” . . .

The warning comes as Europe engages in some of its biggest ever war games — right on Russia’s front door. It’s a deliberate ploy, intended to remind Moscow of the consequences of its duplicitous invasion of Ukraine.

Half a world away, the “w” word was mentioned again yesterday. This time in an editorial by a Chinese state controlled paper. Said the Global Times: “If the United States’ bottom line is that China has to halt its activities, then a US-China war is inevitable in the South China Sea.”

It came as China’s government effectively declared a “no fly zone” over the disputed waterway after warning the US over its “provocative” aerial reconnaissance of several islands. (Read more from “The ‘War’ Word Is Being Increasingly Heard as Europe, Russia, China and the United States Adopt Provocative Postures” HERE)

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Congress in No Rush to Return for ISIS War Authorization

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Photo Credit: Tom Williams / CQ Roll Call By Matt Fuller.

The United States has begun a bombing campaign in Syria, but don’t bet on Congress returning to Washington to vote on a new war authorization anytime soon.

Shortly after airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria started, some lawmakers started pushing again for an authorization vote. But so far, leaders aren’t gearing up to bring their members back to town.

Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., tweeted Monday night it was “irresponsible and immoral” that congressional leaders had chosen to recess for nearly two months instead of debating and voting on war. And the ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, released a statement saying it’s “time for Congress to step up and revise the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force in a way that supports the targeted actions underway, but also prevents the deployment of American ground forces that would drag us into another Iraq War.”

Van Hollen tweeted that Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, should call the House back to debate a new Authorization to Use Military Force.

Boehner’s office deferred to the White House when asked about the issue.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Pentagon: New airstrikes target refineries used by ISIS in Syria

By Chelsea J. Carter, Barbara Starr and Gul Tuysuz.

U.S. and coalition warplanes pounded ISIS positions in eastern Syria on Wednesday, targeting what a Pentagon official described as mobile oil refineries being used by the so-called Islamic State terror group to help finance its operations.

The latest round of airstrikes were aimed at cutting off money flowing to ISIS, which makes up to $2 million a day from oil produced by the mobile refineries, Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, told CNN.

Fighter jets from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates flew alongside U.S. aircraft during the operation, hitting 12 locations, Kirby said.

While the U.S. military was still assessing the outcome of the attacks, Kirby said initial indications suggest the strikes were successful.

“We are very confident we hit what we were aiming at, and we caused the damage we wanted,” he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

White House: We Aren't Going to Get Into What The "Legal, Academic Definition of War" With ISIS May Be

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Photo Credit: TownHallOver the past few weeks, but more specifically since President Obama spoke to the country Wednesday evening about how he will “degrade and destroy” ISIS, Americans are asking one question: Are we at war with these people?

Up until now, President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have said the answer is no. Today White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said while the United States isn’t at war with ISIS, the United States is at war with the terror army in the same way we’re at war with al Qaeda.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Would-Be Peace President Will Leave Behind a Legacy of War

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Photo Credit: EPAPeople blame the new horrors in Iraq on the American-led invasion in 2003. But the exact reason why the country is in civil war today is because the Americans are not there. If US troops were still present, the fanatical ISIS, the “Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham”, would not have swept through the north of the country and now be threatening Baghdad.

The US constitution forbids the President to have more than two terms in office. This may be a valuable restraint on power, but it also means that any two-term president stops governing quite soon after his re-election. Instead he tries to secure his “legacy”. The more he thinks about this, the more it trickles away.

Barack Obama had a legacy earlier than any other American president. He was the first black president before he was even inaugurated. Very shortly after that, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. From the start, he was supposed to go down in history as “the Peace President”. This has all turned into a tremendous disadvantage.

Mr Obama was right about the need to change tone after the presidency of George W Bush. Some of the fierce antagonisms of the Bush era dissolved in his rhetoric. Europeans, in particular, felt what it said on the poster – “Hope”. But in the Muslim world, the people who were bitterly anti-American for reasons way beyond the invasion of Iraq were not converted or even appeased. Nor did anti-Western wolves like Vladimir Putin want to lie down with the new American lamb. They watched and waited to see what Mr Obama would do.

Read more from this story HERE.

Putin’s New Kind of War

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

In the Western imagination, the words “war” and “invasion” carry clear connotations. From books, movies, and television, we know that such events involve tanks, airplanes, and artillery, as well as soldiers in uniform, advanced weaponry, and sophisticated communications. They look like the invasion of Iraq or, to go back in time, D-Day.

So far, the Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine looks nothing like these battles. This war involves not soldiers but local thugs and volunteers, some linked to the ex-president, Viktor Yanukovych, some from criminal gangs, and some who mistakenly think they are fighting for some form of benign local autonomy.

They are being led not by officers in uniform but by men from Russian military intelligence and special operations forces, some wearing camouflage without insignia, some communicating with “activists” by telephone. They are supplied with Russian logistics and a few Russian automatic weapons, but not tanks or planes. There is no “shock and awe” bombing campaign, just systematic, organized attacks on police stations, city councils, airports.

Unlike the planners of D-Day or Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Russians organizing the invasion of Ukraine also have flexible goals. They are prepared to adjust their strategy, depending on how much resistance they encounter. In the long term, Russia clearly hopes to annex eastern and southern Ukraine; maps to that effect have begun to circulate.

But in the meantime, the Kremlin may settle for disrupting Ukraine’s presidential elections, scheduled for May 25, or for destabilizing Ukraine’s shaky provisional government, perhaps forcing an economic crash. The Russians may hope to provoke a civil war, or something that appears to be a civil war, which would then require a Russian “peacekeeping mission.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Warfare Three Ways

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

China is waging political warfare against the United States as part of a strategy to drive the U.S. military out of Asia and control seas near its coasts, according to a Pentagon-sponsored study.

A defense contractor report produced for the Office of Net Assessment, the Pentagon’s think tank on future warfare, describes in detail China’s “Three Warfares” as psychological, media, and legal operations. They represent an asymmetric “military technology” that is a surrogate for conflict involving nuclear and conventional weapons.

The unclassified 566-page report warns that the U.S. government and the military lack effective tools for countering the non-kinetic warfare methods, and notes that U.S. military academies do not teach future military leaders about the Chinese use of unconventional warfare. It urges greater efforts to understand the threat and adopt steps to counter it.

The report highlights China’s use of the Three Warfares in various disputes, including dangerous encounters between U.S. and Chinese warships; the crisis over the 2001 mid-air collision between a U.S. EP-3E surveillance plane and a Chinese jet; and China’s growing aggressiveness in various maritime disputes in the South China and East China Seas.

“The Three Warfares is a dynamic three dimensional war-fighting process that constitutes war by other means,” said Cambridge University professor Stefan Halper, who directed the study. “It is China’s weapon of choice in the South China Sea.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Shocking Viral Video Gives a Dose of Realism to Syrian Violence

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Please note that Restoring Liberty’s sharing of this video does not constitute an endorsement of, or support for, the producing organization or its fundraising efforts.

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Photo Credit: Reuters Christians fleeing Syria head to Turkish ‘homeland’

By Ayla Jean Yackley.

When Louis Bandak fled the violence in Syria, he sought refuge in the country his grandfather was forced to abandon exactly 90 years ago this week.

Bandak, his wife and two daughters are part of a small but growing trickle of Christians arriving in Turkey after three years of civil war in Syria killed more than 140,000 people.

“Although I had never been here before, it does not feel strange. This too is my homeland,” says Bandak, sitting in warm winter sun outside the 5th Century Mor Abrohom Monastery in Midyat, 30 miles (50 km) north of the border.

While most Christian refugees are in Lebanon or Jordan, countries with which they share linguistic or cultural ties, several thousand have come to Turkey. For many it is a reversal of their ancestors’ flight around a century ago, when World War One and the subsequent building of the post-Ottoman Turkish state made Turkey a hostile land for millions of Christians.

The sectarian strife that has rent apart Syria’s delicate multi-ethnic fabric has spawned a severe humanitarian crisis and driven 2.5 million refugees into neighboring countries.

Read more from this story HERE.