Category Archives: United States

Defence, Government, NATO, Politics, United States

U.S. defence budget to cut 40,000 troops over next two years…

U.S. ARMY DEFENCE CUTS

The proposed cuts to the U.S. defence budget would reduce the active-duty Army from its current size of around 490,000 soldiers to about 450,000, its smallest number since before the United States entered World War Two.

The troop reductions were first announced in February 2014 when then-Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel unveiled the Pentagon’s budget for the 2015 fiscal year. The figures were also included in the Pentagon’s four-year planning document, the Quadrennial Defense Review 2014.

Defence officials have confirmed that the Army was moving ahead with the plan to reduce uniformed and civilian personnel and was expected to announce further details about which units would be affected by the cuts.

The personnel cuts come as the Pentagon is attempting to absorb nearly $1 trillion in reductions to planned defence spending over a decade.

Standard
Iraq, Islamic State, Syria, Terrorism, United States

‘Significant airstrikes’ carried out by the US-led coalition on Daesh…

ISLAMIC STATE

One of the most sustained air operations carried out to date against the group Islamic State (IS) has been carried out by the US-led coalition.

The United States, using the Arabic acronym Daesh for the IS group, have said ‘significant airstrikes’ were carried out overnight, executed to deny Daesh the ability to move military capabilities throughout Syria and into Iraq.

The joint-command statement issued yesterday detailed a total of 38 airstrikes on targets belonging to IS in Syria and in Iraq. Tactical units and vehicles had been hit and sixteen bridges were destroyed in the IS stronghold of Raqqa, as well as Hasaka and Kobani, according to the statement.

Raqqa has become the centre of the IS control of territory which extends across both Iraq and Syria.

This is one of the largest deliberate engagements that the US has conducted in Syria, and the US military believes it will have serious debilitating effects on Daesh’s ability to move from Raqqa.

There were twelve strikes on IS targets near eight cities in Iraq. A statement from Iraq’s Defence Ministry has said government forces repelled an IS attack yesterday morning on the town of Haditha and the nearby Haditha dam in Anbar province. It claimed 20 militants were killed in the attack.

Last month IS lost control of the border town of Tal Abyad to Kurdish fighters. The Turkish border town was a major conduit for the group to smuggle in supplies.

The Turkish newspaper Hürriyet has reported that the Turkish army had called a meeting for next week of the commanders of the 54,000 soldiers deployed along the Syrian border.

Turkey is believed to have increased its military defences on the volatile border in the last week as fighting in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo has intensified. The build-up has fed speculation that Ankara is planning to intervene in Syria to push back IS and halt Kurdish forces, which have made gains against IS in the area.

Standard
European Union, Government, National Security, NATO, Politics, Russia, United States

The Pentagon says Putin is ‘Playing with fire’ over nuclear threats…

NUCLEAR THREATS

The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, addresses his military.

The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, addresses his military.

A senior Pentagon official has warned that Russia is ‘playing with fire’ when it suggested that it could use nuclear weapons to settle international disputes, and accused Moscow and Vladimir Putin of trying to intimidate NATO through such threats.

‘Anyone who thinks they can control escalation through the use of nuclear weapons is literally playing with fire,’ U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defence Robert Work told a House Armed Services subcommittee. ‘Escalation is escalation, and nuclear use would be the ultimate escalation.’

While Moscow has not issued any direct nuclear threats, Kremlin officials have made several references to their nuclear arsenal and announced the construction of 40 new nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles, a move that Washington has denounced as ‘sabre-rattling.’

Leaked documents from a meeting between U.S. and Russian officials revealed that Russian officials discussed a ‘spectrum of responses from nuclear to non-military’ if NATO went ahead with its plans to enhance its military presence in the Baltic States.

Russia has also threatened several Baltic nations that they would be considered potential nuclear targets if they joined NATO’s missile defence program. In March, the Russian ambassador to Denmark warned that ‘Danish warships would be targets for Russia’s nuclear weapons,’ if the country joined the military alliance.

The Baltic States have seen a growing number of incursions and flyovers from Russian bombers and ships. Russian planes were intercepted over the Baltic Sea 10 times in the last week alone.

Mr Putin, in a March documentary on the annexation of Crimea, said he was prepared to place Russia’s nuclear forces on alert.

Moscow’s recent military overtures were also condemned by the US: ‘Senior Russian officials continue to make irresponsible statements regarding its nuclear forces, and we assess that they are doing it to intimidate our allies and us,’ Mr Work said. ‘These have failed. If anything, they have really strengthened the NATO alliance solidarity.’

The statement from Russia comes shortly after NATO announced a major escalation of its own military presence in Eastern Europe, which would see thousands of vehicles and troops deployed across Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria, Romania and Poland.

 

 

Standard