TBR News February 7, 2016

Feb 06 2016

The Voice of the White House

Washington, D.C. February 7, 2016: ”There is clandestine but frantic effort on the part of the current Administration inside the Beltway, to distance ourselves from what our people are now beginning to realize is a very dangerous Saudi interference in Mid Eastern affairs. The current warfare, slaughters, attacks on perceived Western enemies by Saudi-sponsored Sunni terrorists is spilling over into hitherto peaceful areas. Egypt, a country that is Sunni, is in the hands of a military dictatorship and an Egyptian terrorist recently put a bomb on a Russian civil aircraft and killed everyone on board. They have constantly interfered with investigations and if they go too far, they will annoy the Russians. This is not a good idea as many are finding out to their regret. There are well-advanced plans to overthrow the Saud dynasty and if this happens, the US will have to search further for its vital oil .

Conversations with the Crow

On October 8th, 2000, Robert Trumbull Crowley, once a leader of the CIA’s Clandestine Operations Division, died in a Washington hospital of heart failure and the end effects of Alzheimer’s Disease. Before the late Assistant Director Crowley was cold, Joseph Trento, a writer of light-weight books on the CIA, descended on Crowley’s widow at her town house on Cathedral Hill Drive in Washington and hauled away over fifty boxes of Crowley’s CIA files.

Once Trento had his new find secure in his house in Front Royal , Virginia, he called a well-known Washington fix lawyer with the news of his success in securing what the CIA had always considered to be a potential major embarrassment. Three months before, July 20th of that year, retired Marine Corps colonel William R. Corson, and an associate of Crowley, died of emphysema and lung cancer at a hospital in Bethesda, Md. After Corson’s death, Trento and his Washington lawyer went to Corson’s bank, got into his safe deposit box and removed a manuscript entitled ‘Zipper.’ This manuscript, which dealt with Crowley’s involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, vanished into a CIA burn-bag and the matter was considered to be closed forever

After Crowley’s death and Trento’s raid on the Crowley files, huge gaps were subsequently discovered by horrified CIA officials and when Crowley’s friends mentioned Gregory Douglas, it was discovered that Crowley’s son had shipped two large boxes to Douglas. No one knew their contents but because Douglas was viewed as an uncontrollable loose cannon who had done considerable damage to the CIA’s reputation by his on-going publication of the history of Gestapo-Mueller, they bent every effort both to identify the missing files and make some effort to retrieve them before Douglas made any use of them.

Douglas had been in close contact with Crowley and had long phone conversatins with him. He found this so interesting and informative that he taped  and later transcribed them.

These conversations have been published in a book: ‘Conversations with the Crow” and this is an excerpt.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Conversations-Crow-Gregory-Douglas-ebook/dp/B00GHMAQ5E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1450147193&sr=8-1&keywords=conversations+with+the+crow

 

Conversation No. 106

Date: Tuesday, October 7, 1997

Commenced: 11: 23 AM CST

Concluded: 11:38 AM CST

GD: What’s up, Robert?

RTC: Emily is pestering me to have some tests made to see if I have lung cancer. Surgery is indicated. I smoke a lot and sometimes I get short of breath but I do not want to go under the knife. At my age, that’s a virtual death sentence. I’ll just keep on stalling as long as I can.

GD: Well, good luck to you.

RTC: Thanks. And what are you up to these days? GD: Being of some assistance to the KLA people.

RTC: Those are very dangerous terrorists, Gregory. Do you know any? GD: Oh my yes, I do. By accident but I had no idea who these people were when I gave them some good advice on certain matters and got a lawyer for them. I don’t care what our government thinks of them. I don’t like Serbs and neither do they so that makes us on the same side.

RTC: What kind of advice did you give them, if I might ask? GD: You may indeed. We discussed the nickel mines. The Ferronkeli mines.

RTC: A rather sensitive subject, Gregory. What do you know about that? GD: I told them to grab the mines, get rid of the management and stuff the shafts or whatever with charges. Set them off if and when. I think I know some people who might be interested in making a deal on the output if and when. I am sure that guerrilla warfare against Belgrade will be successful in the end.

RTC: The mines are of interest to a number of people, you know.

GD: I’ve heard. I told my friends to get the mines and then they could pick and choose.

RTC: I think there are people right now who have a reasonable expectation of getting their hands on that.

GD: Your people? RTC: A mutual interest. I suggest you do not interfere in this, if you take my advice.

GD: I usually do, Robert, but this time, I launched a project without mentioning it to you mainly because you are not involved any more and it did not occur to me that the CIA might have business friends. I know your people are stirring things up over there so I just tried to be of friendly use to people I rather like.

RTC: Bigger mines than Petsamo.

GD: Yes and I think the locals should have control over them, not the friends of anyone here. More wars, insurrections and protracted death are due to business interests who have friends at Langley. Besides, they rather like me because I help my friends without bothering to ask for money.

RTC: What do you expect to get out of this?

GD: Good will. I think if the Serbs attack, they will have the shit kicked out of them and the Albanians will come out ahead. I like Albanians anyway. I mean they are very good friends and terrible enemies. I prefer people like that as opposed to the sissified cunts that are on the other side. No offense to you, of course, but I have run into some of our spies overseas and I have no respect for the purse-swingers.

RTC: I have gathered that and not only from you. You have so many friends, Gregory.

GD: Judge a man by his enemies, Robert. And as Otto said, many enemies, much honor. If the KLA keeps on the way it has been going, they will start the ball rolling and it could be the breakup of the Tito empire. Terrible thought. I am sure the Croats, the Albanians and the Slovenes will be overjoyed. The Balkans have always been a hotbed of turmoil and disasters. The Serbs started the First World War and have been making trouble for decades. Maybe the KLA can start a bonfire and others can achieve militarily which they cannot. We can only wait and see and in the meantime, I love to get together with my Albanian friends and enjoy a pleasant interlude discussing politics and military projects.

RTC: But the KLA are terrorists, Gregory.

GD: I’m sure but Robert, your terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.

RTC: And they’re not Christians.

GD: I would hope not. The Christians have been responsible for more bloodshed over the years than Genghis Kahn and the Mongols. I can cite chapter and verse to you. My connections are Muslims anyway and that group is coming up to the top now. Another Mideast problem hatching from the egg. Of course any Muslim nationalism will be a direct counteraction to perceived Western meddling and, even more important, our slavish devotion to Israel. Hell, 95% of the Jews in Israel are Khazars and don’t have a drop of Jewish blood in them. The Ashkenazi are a bunch of bloody bastards and they simply barged into Palestine, claiming that was their ancestral home…which it was not. Ah well, far be it from me to try to enlighten our thoroughly corrupt legislators. Maybe a bomb up their collective asses will get them to be a bit less devoted and a bit more neutral.

RTC: I doubt that will ever happen, Gregory, but you have a point there.

GD: Of course but it is obvious. Israel would never help us but they demand we help them to the tune of billions of dollars down our drain. We don’t get value for money from that one, believe me.

(Concluded at 11:38 AM CST) 

 

 

Iraqi refugee raped 10yo boy in Austria, says it was ‘sexual emergency’

February 6, 2016

RT

Austrian police have confirmed that an Iraqi refugee was arrested over the rape of a 10 year-old boy at a swimming pool in Vienna in December. He told police he did it due to a “sexual emergency,” local media reported citing the interrogation record.

“A complaint was filed over the rape of a 10-year-old boy in the Theresienbad swimming pool. We determined the suspect is a 20-year old man, who lives in Vienna. He was arrested and later sent to the Josephstadt prison,” Chief Inspector Roman Hahslinger told the Ruptly video new agency on Saturday.

Hahslinger added: “The suspect is an Iraqi citizen, who lives in Vienna and has refugee status.”

The attack took place in a swimming pool cubicle on December 2. The man, whose name has not been disclosed, dragged a boy into the changing room and assaulted him. After the boy told a lifeguard what had happened, the police were immediately called. They managed to apprehend the attacker in the pool, who, to their amazement, instead of fleeing the crime scene, was having fun by jumping from a three-meter board, Die Heute reported.

The boy, who suffered severe internal injuries, was admitted to a children’s hospital.

The perpetrator, who came to Austria via the Balkans on September 13, confessed to police he had acted because of a “sexual emergency.” When asked if such actions were legal in his home country, he admitted he knew that “such acts were forbidden in any country of the world.”

He also confessed he had made a “huge mistake,” Die Standard reports, citing the interrogation record published by the Austrian Press Agency.

The state prosecutor charged the man, who remains in custody, with rape and grave sexual abuse of a minor, the body’s spokeswoman Nina Bussek confirmed on Friday, the Kronen Zeitung newspaper reported.

“The topic of refugees certainly is occupying all at the moment, but people needn’t be worried; Vienna is a safe city, nothing has changed about that yet,” Hahslinger told Ruptly.

Austria has accepted the second highest number of refugees per capita so far in Europe. Only Sweden has taken in more. In January, Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann announced a plan to introduce a cap on the number of asylum requests the country would approve in 2016, fixing the number of refugees at 37,500.

 

Error 53’ fury mounts as Apple software update threatens to kill your iPhone 6

It’s the message that spells doom and will render your handset worthless if it’s been repaired by a third party. But there’s no warning and no fix

February 5, 2016

by Miles Brignall

The Guardian

Thousands of iPhone 6 users claim they have been left holding almost worthless phones because Apple’s latest operating system permanently disables the handset if it detects that a repair has been carried out by a non-Apple technician.

Relatively few people outside the tech world are aware of the so-called “error 53” problem, but if it happens to you you’ll know about it. And according to one specialist journalist, it “will kill your iPhone”.

The issue appears to affect handsets where the home button, which has touch ID fingerprint recognition built-in, has been repaired by a “non-official” company or individual. It has also reportedly affected customers whose phone has been damaged but who have been able to carry on using it without the need for a repair.

But the problem only comes to light when the latest version of Apple’s iPhone software, iOS 9, is installed. Indeed, the phone may have been working perfectly for weeks or months since a repair or being damaged.

After installation a growing number of people have watched in horror as their phone, which may well have cost them £500-plus, is rendered useless. Any photos or other data held on the handset is lost – and irretrievable.

Tech experts claim Apple knows all about the problem but has done nothing to warn users that their phone will be “bricked” (ie, rendered as technologically useful as a brick) if they install the iOS upgrade.

Freelance photographer and self-confessed Apple addict Antonio Olmos says this happened to his phone a few weeks ago after he upgraded his software. Olmos had previously had his handset repaired while on an assignment for the Guardian in Macedonia. “I was in the Balkans covering the refugee crisis in September when I dropped my phone. Because I desperately needed it for work I got it fixed at a local shop, as there are no Apple stores in Macedonia. They repaired the screen and home button, and it worked perfectly.”

He says he thought no more about it, until he was sent the standard notification by Apple inviting him to install the latest software. He accepted the upgrade, but within seconds the phone was displaying “error 53” and was, in effect, dead.

When Olmos, who says he has spent thousands of pounds on Apple products over the years, took it to an Apple store in London, staff told him there was nothing they could do, and that his phone was now junk. He had to pay £270 for a replacement and is furious.

The whole thing is extraordinary. How can a company deliberately make their own products useless with an upgrade and not warn their own customers about it? Outside of the big industrialised nations, Apple stores are few and far between, and damaged phones can only be brought back to life by small third-party repairers.

I am not even sure these third-party outfits even know this is a potential problem,” he says.

Olmos is far from the only one affected. If you Google “iPhone 6” and “error 53” you will find no shortage of people reporting that they have been left with a phone that now only functions as a very expensive paperweight.

Posting a message on an Apple Support Communities forum on 31 December, “Arjunthebuster” is typical. He/she says they bought their iPhone 6 in January 2015 in Dubai, and dropped it the following month causing a small amount of damage.

They carried on using the phone, but when they tried to install iOS 9 in November “error 53” popped up. “The error hasn’t occurred because I broke my phone (it was working fine for 10 months). I lost all my data because of this error. I don’t want Apple to fix my screen or anything! I just want them to fix the ‘error 53’ so I can use my phone, but they won’t!”

Could Apple’s move, which appears to be designed to squeeze out independent repairers, contravene competition rules? Car manufacturers, for example, are not allowed to insist that buyers only get their car serviced by them.

Apple charges £236 for a repair to the home button on an iPhone 6 in the UK, while an independent repairer would demand a fraction of that.

California-based tech expert Kyle Wiens, who runs the iFixit website, says this is a major issue. “The ‘error 53’ page on our website has had more than 183,000 hits, suggesting this is a big problem for Apple users,” he told Guardian Money. “The problem occurs if the repairer changes the home button or the cable. Following the software upgrade the phone in effect checks to make sure it is still using the original components, and if it isn’t, it simply locks out the phone. There is no warning, and there’s no way that I know of to bring it back to life.”

He says it is unclear whether this is a deliberate move to force anyone who drops their phone to use Apple for a repair. “All along, Apple’s view is that it does not want third parties carrying out repairs to its products, and this looks like an obvious extension of that,” he says. “What it should do is allow its customers to recalibrate their phone after a repair. Only when there is a huge outcry about this problem will it do something.”

The Daily Dot website features an article by tech writer Mike Wehner headlined “Error 53 will kill your iPhone and no one knows what it is”. He relates how his own iPhone 6 Plus was left “effectively dead to the world”.

Meanwhile, an article by tech writer Reuben Esparza, published in November by iCracked, a phone repair service, states: “When pressed for more information about the error, few, if any Apple employees could offer an explanation. There was no part they would replace, no software fix, and no way to access the phone’s memory. The fix was a new iPhone.” It continues: “Though still largely a mystery to most, we now know that error 53 is the result of a hardware failure somewhere within the home button assembly.”

A spokeswoman for Apple told Money (get ready for a jargon overload): “We protect fingerprint data using a secure enclave, which is uniquely paired to the touch ID sensor. When iPhone is serviced by an authorised Apple service provider or Apple retail store for changes that affect the touch ID sensor, the pairing is re-validated. This check ensures the device and the iOS features related to touch ID remain secure. Without this unique pairing, a malicious touch ID sensor could be substituted, thereby gaining access to the secure enclave. When iOS detects that the pairing fails, touch ID, including Apple Pay, is disabled so the device remains secure.”

She adds: “When an iPhone is serviced by an unauthorised repair provider, faulty screens or other invalid components that affect the touch ID sensor could cause the check to fail if the pairing cannot be validated. With a subsequent update or restore, additional security checks result in an ‘error 53’ being displayed … If a customer encounters an unrecoverable error 53, we recommend contacting Apple support.”

 

No fair hearing for Assange at the Guardian

February 5, 2016

by Jonathan Cook

At what point do we cry foul when we witness the abuse of a political dissident, one who dares to take on mighty vested interests?

When his own state, the local legal system and the media all turn on him? When he is forced to seek sanctuary in a foreign embassy for many years, surrounded by state security forces threatening to arrest him if he leaves? When the world’s highest arbiter on the matter of his confinement, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, supports his case? When the state, legal authorities and the media ignore the ruling and continue to demand his arrest?

If this were China or Russia, at some point along this trajectory most of us would have been forced to concede that this was a clear case of political persecution; that the best he could hope for was a show trial; and that the local media were failing in their role as watchdogs on power.

But this is not China or Russia. This is the UK, the dissident is Julian Assange and it suddenly seems that the world’s leading experts on arbitrary detention have no clue what they are talking about.

Today the UN panel on arbitrary detention ruled that Assange, who has spent more than three years confined to a tiny room in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, is being arbitrarily detained and that he should be allowed to walk free.

The panel comprises leading experts in international human rights law from around the world who have been studying his case since 2014. It is probably safe to assume they know much more about the details of the case than most journalists.

Assange was convicted by the British corporate media, including its supposedly liberal outfits, from the moment allegations of sexual offences in Sweden surfaced six years ago. August media outlets like the BBC, which carefully presume innocence in prosecutions of those accused of everyday crimes, repeatedly made grossly erroneous claims about Assange, including that he had been charged with rape when no charges have yet been laid. Assange is being investigated.

Even now, when the UN panel is on his side, it seems the British media are not about to stop.

What has been so infuriating about the coverage of Assange’s case is that supposedly critical journalists have simply peddled allegations and arguments advanced by the parties involved – the UK, Sweden, and the United States – without making even cursory efforts to check them.

Film-maker Alex Gibney, for example, spent many months putting together a cinema-released documentary on the Assange case that made such elementary mistakes that anyone who had spent even a little time watching the case unfold could pick apart basic flaws in Gibney’s argument, as I did here.

Although the UN panel has backed Assange, as it has other prominent dissidents such as Aung Sang Suu Kyi in Burma and opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim in Malaysia, Britain’s most esteemed liberal mainstream newspaper, the Guardian, has barely paused for breath in continuing to pursue its campaign against him.

An editorial today dismisses the UN ruling as a “publicity stunt”. It ignores the weight of the UN panel’s decision, and yet again makes claims and assertions about the case that are patently false.

The core of its argument is this: Assange cannot have been arbitrarily detained because, by denying Swedish prosecutors the chance to interview him, he has blocked their efforts to advance the case. In other words, his detention is self-inflicted.

The Guardian puts it this way:

Since Mr Assange left Sweden in 2010 before he could be questioned and has resolutely refused to return, no such interview has taken place.

That short sentence contains two deceptions.

Assange was interviewed in Sweden when the allegations were initially made. And he was allowed to leave the country after the first prosecutor, Eva Finne, dismissed the case, saying: “I don’t believe there is any reason to suspect that he has committed rape.”

It is not even true that an interview cannot take place because Assange will not return to Sweden. Remember Assange has not returned because he is seeking asylum in Ecuador’s embassy to prevent his extradition to Sweden and what he fears will be an onward extradtion to the US, where he is likely to be tried for Wikileaks’ activities, which have deeply embarrassed the White House.

It is quite possible for Marianne Ny, the Swedish prosecutor who revived the case after Finne dismissed it, to travel the short distance to London to interview him. It has happened before in much less high-profile cases. She knows where to find him, after all.

But despite Ny’s aggressive pursuit of other angles to this case, she has dragged her feet for years over this simple and essential stage of her investigation to determine whether there is any substance to the claims against Assange.

Now judge for yourself the Guardian’s seriousness in considering Assange’s plight from this single sentence:

[Assange] was granted bail [in the UK] while he fought extradition to Sweden and he broke his bail conditions, at great expense to those friends and supporters who had backed him financially, by fleeing to the Ecuadorian embassy.

Assange is claiming asylum from political persecution, and has been backed by the world’s authority on the matter – the UN panel whose similar rulings in the the detentions of Aung Sang Suu Kyi in Burma and opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim in Malaysia have been enthusiastically supported by the Guardian.

Assange is not paranoid. A grand jury has been secretly arraigned in Virginia, the home of the CIA, that is dredging up long-discarded laws to charge him with espionage, even though he is not a US citizen.

And in spite of all this, the Guardian thinks that the most pressing matter is Assange violating his bail conditions. Should this argument not be considered risible? Would the Guardian have dared raise it in relation to Suu Kyi, Anwar Ibrahim or the dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei? Had they sought asylum in a foreign embassy from political persecution, as the UN panel’s ruling at the very least implies is the case for Assange, would the Guardian be arguing that they should still have handed themselves over to the authorities so as not to break their bail terms?

The Guardian’s truly Kafka-esque worldview is revealed in its editorial’s concluding line:

WikiLeaks was founded on exposing those who ignored the rule of law. Surely its editor-in-chief should recognise his duty to see it upheld.

Wikileaks was most certainly not founded to expose those who have violated local, state-based law. Wikileaks does not believe Suu Kyi should have spent many years under house arrest because she broke Burma’s laws, or that Anwar Ibrahim should be in jail because he violated Malaysian laws. Or that George Bush and Tony Blair should live as respected multi-millionaires rather than face long jail sentences as war criminals because their local legal systems do not function properly.

Wikileaks was founded on another idea: that a fairer world requires transparency.

The secret machinations of the US grand jury, the endless obfuscations and hidden agenda of Sweden’s second prosecutor, and the Guardian’s own financial reliance on major corporations are all relevant to understanding why Assange remains arbitrarily detained – and why the Guardian won’t give him a fair hearing.

 

Bomb to blame for hole in Somali jetliner

Somalia’s transport minister has said a bomb aimed at killing everyone onboard a flight blew a hole in a passenger jet. Authorities have blamed the attack on al-Shabab militants

February 6, 2016

DW

Somalia’s Transport and Aviation Minister Ali Jama Jangali said on Saturday that a bomb created a hole in the fuselage of an Airbus A321 on Tuesday.

“Additional investigations conducted by Somali and international experts have confirmed the explosion that occurred inside the Daallo Airlines (jet) was not a technical problem but was a bomb that was intended to destroy the plane and kill all passengers onboard,” Jama said during a press conference in Mogadishu.

One passenger was killed during the explosion, although it is unclear whether his body was ejected from the plane during the incident.

According to Jama, police arrested several suspects in connection with the explosion.

“The security forces have detained people suspected of being involved the bomb that exploded inside that plane,” Jama said.

The bomb exploded while the plane was ascending and did not damage the aircraft’s navigation system, allowing Serbian pilot Vladimir Vodopivec to make an emergency landing in Mogadishu 15 minutes after taking off.

Somali authorities blamed the attack on the al-Shabab militant group operating in the country, although it has yet to claim responsibility.

In 2015, a bomb attack claimed by the “Islamic State” militant group brought down a Russian passenger aircraft over Egypt’s Sinai region, killing all 224 people onboard.

 

They’re trying to deify Ronald Reagan: Inside the right-wing plot to turn the Gipper into a modern-day God

Grover Norquist wants an ode to Reagan in all 3,000 U.S. counties. Then just wait until he targets our currency

February 6, 2016

by Brady Carlson

SALON

Inertia may be enough to keep a statue in the ground, but it’s not going to make anybody care about the president on that statue. Doing that takes effort—like a movement across the country. Or, alternatively, a lot of little movements in different parts of the country.

This has been the idea behind the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project: rather than let the historic chips fall where they may and leave their man to inertia and thumb vandals, the project wants to keep Ronald Reagan and his ideals in front of the public by naming things for him. Lots of things. How many things? “We want one thing in each county,” says the project’s architect, Grover Norquist.

America has more than three thousand counties, so he’s talking about a lot of Reagan.

Norquist is as well suited as anybody for a grand-scale Reagan project: he’s the man behind the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, in which lawmakers, almost always Republican ones, promise to block any increase to any tax at any time. That pledge has certainly gone big; signing has been a virtual requirement for Republican candidates, who support the principle behind signing but also know that Norquist’s group, Americans for Tax Reform, can pit its considerable influence and resources against them if they don’t. Democrats by and large abhor the pledge and complain that Norquist has an “iron grip” on modern conservatives. One critic even called him the “dark wizard” of the right.

Call him what you want—Norquist has even called himself a “Darth Vader” for the cause at times—but it would be well off the mark to assume he’s just a heavy for tax cuts. The Legacy Project is pretty shrewd stuff, using a mostly nonpolitical appeal to advance political principles. “If you want to contend for the future,” Norquist said as the project got off the ground, “you have to contend for the public understanding of the past.” A big part of that understanding comes from naming things for public figures, and Reagan’s naming legacy was, at that point, pretty small. Meanwhile, he said, “everything that wasn’t nailed down was named for John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King or Franklin D. Roosevelt. Conservatives have not done as well in honoring their heroes.”

When Norquist started the Legacy Project in 1997, Ronald Reagan was still alive, albeit out of public view because of Alzheimer’s disease. And he’d been out of office for less than a decade. Memorials tend to take time, and, by definition, they come after a person’s death. Kennedy, King, and FDR had all been dead for decades, and each had died a very public, tragic death; a lot of the memorials that came after those deaths weren’t necessarily because of the subject’s political persuasions.

Then again, Roosevelt and Kennedy each ended up on a coin within the year after they died, so it is possible to put a memorial together quickly. And if memorials really do shape public perception, then Reagan, with maybe two dozen to his name, wasn’t set to shape much. Sure, the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington was the second-largest government building in the country when it was built, second only to the Pentagon, and the DC emergency room where the Secret Service took the president after the attempt on his life in 1981 had been renamed the Ronald Reagan Institute of Emergency Medicine. But such sites weren’t going to capture the public imagination like, say, the Franklin Roosevelt Memorial on the National Mall. And while the Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home in Dixon, Illinois, is a fine place, the statue of Reagan in the side yard is as much about promoting the state’s industry as it is about the president’s legacy: “Illinois is famous for its production of agricultural products,” the statue’s information plaque says, “so it seems appropriate for him to be admiring the kernels of corn in his hand.”

Hence the effort to put a memorial in every county in the country. If Reagan’s legacy lagged in the public imagination, the thinking went, the conservative movement could lag, too. But if the public thought of Reagan, as Norquist did, as a top-tier historic figure, there would be a Reagan mantle for modern conservatives to claim as their own. As the former Legacy Project director Michael Kamburowski put it, “Someone 30 to 40 years from now who may never have heard of Reagan will be forced to ask himself, ‘Who was this man to have so many things named after him?’” The project website offers a “strategy guide” for choosing things to name, and it says participants should always keep an eye out for low-hanging fruit: “Many major landmarks and projects are named for physical geography, such as ‘Muddy Creek Elementary,’” it advises. “These are easy dedications.”

Norquist has often kept a big, high-profile naming opportunity on the table as well, because presidents don’t stay top tier solely as a namesake for previously unnamed muddy creeks. “Norquist had learned the lessons of [Reagan’s famous speeches at] Normandy and of the Brandenburg Gate,” says Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News; he wrote about the project in his book about Reagan, Tear Down This Myth. “Powerful symbols can mean a lot more than words.” The first symbol he chose in launching the initiative in 1997 was National Airport in Washington; he lined up support from then–House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Reagan’s son Michael, who called on Congress to “win just one more for the Gipper.”

Win they did, though not without opposition. Rep. James Oberstar, a Minnesota Democrat, complained Norquist and company wanted “to turn the airport into a political billboard to greet visitors to Washington.” The DC transit authority refused at first to spend money on maps with the new name. And then there was longtime New York senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who grumbled, “Washington National Airport is already named after a president—the first one.” Even some staunch Reaganites joined in the criticism; commentator George Will wrote there was “something un-Reaganesque about trying to plaster his name all over the country the way Lenin was plastered over Eastern Europe, Mao over China and Saddam Hussein all over Iraq.” Nevertheless, the bill passed the House and Senate handily in early 1998, and National Airport became known as Reagan National Airport.

However, opposition has stopped some of the Legacy Project’s bigger ideas. Grover Norquist called for Reagan to replace Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill. “I think it will pass very easily when Reagan passes away,” he said in 2001. “I’ve told the Bush [administration] to expect it.” But the effort stalled, even after Reagan’s death in 2004. Plan B, to put Reagan on the dime, had less support; even Nancy Reagan declared herself opposed to the idea. And Norquist’s wish for a Reagan Monument on the National Mall ground to a halt, ironically because of a bill President Reagan signed in 1986 barring any Mall memorials for people who hadn’t been dead for at least twenty-five years.

Sometimes the project has had to play defense. In 2013 the University of Chicago tore down an apartment complex in which Reagan had lived as a preschooler, despite calls from a group of community activists to turn it into “a museum and center.” The preservationists proposed a pretty colorful alternative: “Break the walls, floors, ceiling and fixtures of the Reagan family apartment into small fragments and sell them on the Internet for between $100 and $1,000 a chip, depending on the size,” suggested a board member of the Hyde Park Historical Society in a letter to the university’s newspaper. “This should raise many thousands of dollars for the university, rather like selling fragments of the True Cross.” It didn’t happen, but not for lack of enthusiasm among the pro-Reagan contingent.

And in the southern California town of Temecula, about an hour north of San Diego, a Reagan statue almost went up in flames. As president, the Gipper liked to tell the story of the town’s park—built entirely without public funding or assistance—as an example of what citizens could do without relying on government. Temecula, in response, named the place the Ronald Reagan Sports Park, complete with a Reagan statue. In 2013 someone set the thing on fire, charring the statue and destroying tiles displaying a quote in which Reagan exhorted Temecula to “never lose that spirit” of private-sector freedom and initiative.

More recently the Legacy Project has been on the hunt for a mountain peak on which to hang the Reagan name. In 2003 New Hampshire approved a bill to change the name of Mount Clay, in the White Mountains, to Mount Reagan, but the federal government said no, because of a policy about not naming things after people who hadn’t been dead five years; when they tried again years later, the feds said no again because of local resistance to the change. A Legacy Project supporter in Nevada, Chuck Muth, had better luck in his state: he found an unnamed mountain in a mountain range east of Las Vegas, cultivated local support, and even found local connections. (“Reagan was a marquee performer on the Las Vegas Strip for two weeks in 1954,” Muth told the Atlantic in 2013. “He owed back taxes to the IRS and needed the money. He also filmed a World War II propaganda film with Burgess Meredith at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.”) But just as the Board on Geographic Names looked set to act on the proposal, a Democratic member of Congress filed a bill to name that mountain after a Nevada lawmaker, blocking the board from taking action just as Ohioans had done so many times to those who wanted to pull William McKinley’s name from Denali in Alaska.

Muth has decided to start again with a different mountain in the same range. “It’s not the highest peak,” he said, “but it’s certainly close enough.” Maybe someday he’ll get Ronald Reagan’s name on a mountain. His effort, like many of the Legacy Project’s initiatives, has ebbed and flowed. There are hundreds of Reagan memorials on the map now, from Ronald W. Reagan Middle School in Grand Prairie, Texas, to Ronald Reagan Boulevard in Warwick, New York, to the Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile Site in Cooperstown, North Dakota. But there are still more than two thousand Reagan-less counties, too. Sometimes the Legacy Project aims for a high-profile naming opportunity like the $10 bill; other times it lies low and just reminds supporters to celebrate Reagan’s birthday each February.

Even in quiet periods, though, Grover Norquist keeps an eye out for a good opportunity. Shortly after the US Patent and Trademark Office canceled the Washington Redskins’ federal registrations for being “disparaging to Native Americans,” sports fans started thinking up new names for the team—including the Washington Reagans. “Great idea,” Norquist told Buzzfeed. “The former Redskins can be the Ronald Reagans on winning years and the Nancy Reagans on losing years. Unless that gets us in more trouble elsewhere.”

Whether or not Reagan gets a football team named for him, or a mountain, or a $10 bill, the ongoing effort to name things after him will at least ensure he lingers in the public imagination, even as other modern presidents fade. In 2000, when the Legacy Project was just a few years old, Gallup Poll respondents ranked Reagan as a better-than-average US president; today, he usually ranks near the top, with John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln. There’s a partisan divide in these polls—more than half of Republican respondents choose Reagan, while Democrats give Kennedy a boost—but the poll numbers echo Norquist’s hope that Reagan could be a conservative hero in the public’s eyes as Kennedy had been for progressives. Ronald Reagan remains, as the Legacy Project had hoped, a big deal.

Almost too big a deal, in fact. In 2012, rumors were flying at the Republican National Convention that a “special guest” on the schedule would be a 3-D hologram version of the Gipper, much like the hologram Tupac Shakur that had “performed” onstage at Coachella earlier in the year. Yahoo! News found a man called Tom Reynolds, who said he’d been developing a hologram version of the Great Communicator, but ran into opposition from Republicans “who asked him to delay the project out of concern it would overshadow Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech.” “Even in a hologram form,” Reynolds said, “I think Reagan’s going to beat a lot of people in terms of communicating.”

There’s no question there’s an overtly political element to the Reagan Legacy Project, but it’s hardly the first time someone’s tried to name something after a president for political reasons; in fact, the project’s playbook isn’t that different from the one liberals used in the 1930s to memorialize Thomas Jefferson. The Sage of Monticello’s brand of rural individualism fell out of favor after the Civil War, in which Lincoln mobilized a strong central government to keep the country together. But in the 1930s, Franklin Roosevelt and his allies played up Jefferson as a champion of the little guy, a president who stood up for the people against the powerful. Jefferson’s face first showed up on the nickel in 1938, and FDR dedicated the Jefferson Memorial the following year, saying, “He lived, as we live, in the midst of a struggle between rule by the self-chosen individual or the self-appointed few.” Like the Legacy Project’s image of Reagan, this version of Jefferson wasn’t always a perfect historic fit, but the politics worked extremely well.

Jefferson has also been used as a symbol by people with very different politics than New Deal Democrats. Several times people in rural northern California have proposed pulling the region out of the Golden State and creating a new, libertarian-themed State of Jefferson with equally rural southern Oregon. “The Jefferson statehood tale appeals to a fantasy Westerners embrace,” says journalist Peter Laufer, who’s written about the movement. “We’re rugged individualists who like to go it alone.” And who better to stand as a symbol of that spirit than the most prominent voice for agrarian-style small government?

Ronald Reagan himself made a point of honoring a president for political purposes. Shortly after becoming president, he moved a portrait of New Deal icon Harry Truman out of the Cabinet Room and replaced it with one more in line with the more conservative goals he had in mind: Calvin Coolidge. Silent Cal was, as his biographer Amity Shlaes described him, the Great Refrainer of the American presidency, the guy who would rather get rid of a single bad law than pass twenty good ones. He was known for being frugal with words—the famous Coolidge quote is the one in which a woman tells Cal she made a bet she could get more than two words out of him, and he answers, “You lose.” But he was even more frugal with the federal budget, cutting back everything he could, and then trying to cut more. The portrait change was Reagan’s way of saying which president he hoped to emulate.

 

More than 3,100 pregnant women in Colombia have Zika virus: government

February 6, 2016

by Julia Symmes Cobb

Reuters

More than 3,100 pregnant Colombian women are infected with the mosquito-borne Zika virus, President Juan Manuel Santos said on Saturday, as the disease continues its rapid spread across the Americas.

The virus has been linked to the devastating birth defect microcephaly, which prevents fetus’ brains from developing properly. There is no vaccine or treatment.

There are so far no recorded cases of Zika-linked microcephaly in Colombia, Santos said.

There are 25,645 people infected with the disease in Colombia, Santos said during a TV broadcast with health officials. Among them are 3,177 pregnant women.

“The projection is that we could end up having 600,000 cases,” Santos said, adding there could be up to 1,000 cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare but serious condition that can cause paralysis and which some governments have linked to Zika infection.

Santos said the government was now uncertain about a previous projection for up to 500 cases of Zika-linked microcephaly, based on data from other countries battling the disease. Authorities will continue to investigate, he said.

The government will be working across the country to fight mosquitoes – fumigating and helping families rid their homes of stagnant water, the president said.

Colombian health minister Alejandro Gaviria has said he believes three deaths are connected with Zika.

The province of Norte de Santander had nearly 5,000 cases of the virus, more than any other in the country, an epidemiological bulletin from the national health institute published on Saturday showed.

Norte de Santander, along the eastern border with Venezuela, also had the highest number of pregnant women with Zika – nearly 31 percent of total cases.

The country’s Caribbean region, which includes popular tourist destinations Cartagena and Santa Marta, had more than 11,000 cases of the virus, the bulletin showed.

The government has said pregnant women with Zika are eligible to access much-restricted abortion services.

Many women struggle to find abortion providers even when they meet strict legal requirements and illegal abortions are widespread. On Friday, local media reported the first abortion because of Zika infection.

The government has urged women to delay pregnancy for six to eight months.

Unreported cases and patients with no symptoms of infection could mean that there are between 80,000 and 100,000 current Zika infections in Colombia, the government has said.

An estimated 80 percent of those infected with Zika show no symptoms, and those that do have a mild illness, with a fever, rash and red eyes.

(Reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

 

Aleppo siege looms as pro-Assad forces cut opposition supply lines

Tens of thousands flee Syria’s largest city – with more than 35,000 arriving in Turkey’s Kilis province in last 48 hours – but 400,000 remain

February 6, 2016

by Emma Graham-Harrison

The Guardian

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians face the prospect of a brutal siege inside Aleppo, after Syrian government and Russian forces cut the last secure supply line into rebel-held areas of the city, aid and human rights groups have warned.

Up to 70,000 people have fled towards the border with Turkey, where they are cramming into already overcrowded refugee camps, hoping that Ankara will open crossings. The governor of one of the country’s most affected provinces, Kilis, said more that 35,000 had arrived in the past 48 hours.

With around half a million people at risk inside the city and sheltering in camps along the Turkish border, the assault on Aleppo risks creating one of the worst humanitarian crises of a years-long war, a major aid organisation working in the area has warned.

If government forces do set up a blockade, it would double the number of people living under siege in Syria virtually overnight.

Today approximately 400,000 live in the non-government controlled areas, and we expect they will remain. The people able to leave would have left by now,” said Dalia al-Awqati, the director of programmes for Mercy Corps in Northern Syria, said. “There are serious concerns for all humanitarian organisations as to the possibility of a siege situation.”

The charity is second only to the United Nations in the scale of aid provided in the Aleppo area, and has been feeding more than 66,000 people in the city itself, but warned that because of recent fighting “operations in northern Syria have effectively been sliced in half.

The main supply line from the north has just been cut. One other supply line exists but it’s very intermittent and unreliable,” Awqati said in a phone interview from her base north of the border.

The Syrian government and other parties to the war have been using siege tactics throughout the conflict, and a recent UN report estimated nearly 400,000 people were cut off from food and other supplies by armed groups, mostly by Isis or government forces.

The rapid advance by government troops has created turmoil near the border with Turkey, where the United Nations estimates that up to 20,000 new arrivals have joined 30,000 people who were living in grim tent cities near the border before the latest crisis.

Tens of thousands more Syrians have also fled the fighting and are heading north in hope of refuge in Turkey, even though Ankara has refused to open crossings. Altogether up to 100,000 people could soon be massed on on near the border.

Grim conditions there are less daunting than the prospect of more bombs, fighting or a protracted siege as Syria’s president, Bashar al Assad, tries to seal control of the country’s largest city.

Taking Aleppo would be a major strategic victory for government troops and their Russian backers, because it has been an opposition stronghold since the start of the war. But pushing recent advances through more rural areas into the heart of the city would probably result in a protracted and bloody battle.

In the street-to-street fighting needed to take urban areas, the strategic advantage of Russian air power that has driven recent advances by government troops would evaporate. Rebels determined to fight for the city have also been strengthening their positions and even heading into the city from other parts of Syria.

There are reports that fighters are being sent to Aleppo from Idlib, and Hama, after a call for opposition groups to send any forces they can,” said Hossam Abouzahr, analyst with the Atlantic Council. “Speaking with people in the area, estimates [of the number of rebel fighters in the city] run as high as 60,000, but this is likely an exaggerated number.”

A siege would aim to weaken and demoralise fighters and the civilians they are living among to force an eventual surrender. Government forces have been using siege tactics throughout the war, and are experienced at setting up sophisticated and deadly blockades.

The area likely to be included in a siege is the city and maybe 10km outside it,” said Abouzahr. “Usually it is not a simple ring. Instead the regime forces clear the surrounding countryside and set up multiple rings so that people and supplies cannot get in or out.”

Conditions are already worsening inside the city after days of intensive bombing, according to James Le Mesurier, the director of Mayday Rescue, which works with the white helmets, a group that provides search and rescue for civilians in the city.

The scale of the attacks is straining even teams used to dealing with carnage, who have responded to more than 500 attacks over the last week, he added. Their group estimates at least 20,000 people have left the city itself over the past seven days.

The situation in Aleppo is extremely dire,” he said. “The teams are struggling to cope with the bombing of civilians that is taking place.”

Tens of thousands of other refugees now heading to the Turkish border have fled from areas north of the city, where there are still relatively large communities even after years of war.

Conditions were somewhat better than in the devastated streets of Aleppo, and some families had even reportedly returned from exile, choosing life there over the misery of refugee camps abroad.

They have been badly affected by the war, nothing is normal in Syria. But roads to Turkey were functioning – supplies and food and things were coming in. There has also been a certain level of local governance, basic local services,” said Wael Aleji, spokesman for the Syrian Network for Human Rights.

They preferred to stay in their homes as long as they could sustain that. Lots of them had shops, had small businesses, this was generating some income to them, they preferred that to living in camps or going to Turkey and searching for jobs and places to live as refugees.”

Additional reporting by Marga Zambrana

 

Is it time for the United States to dump Saudi Arabia?

February 3, 2016

by Josh Cohen

Reuters

After the recent execution of Shi’ite cleric Nimr al-Nimr by Saudi Arabia, the Middle East once again risks devolving into sectarian chaos. A mob torched  the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, prompting Saudi Arabia and a number of its Sunni allies to break diplomatic relations with Iran.

In response to the unfolding chaos, the Wall Street Journal responded by asking “Who Lost the Saudis?” — fretting that the lack of support from the United States could lead to the overthrow of the Saudi regime. This is a provocative query, reminiscent of the “Who Lost China?” attacks against President Harry Truman after the Communist takeover of mainland China in 1949. But it’s the wrong question. Rather than wondering if Washington’s support for Riyadh is sufficient, American policymakers should instead ask themselves the following question: Is it time for the United States to dump Saudi Arabia?

The moral case for the United States to question its close relationship with Saudi Arabia is clear. Saudi Arabia is governed by the House of Saud, an authoritarian monarchy that does not tolerate dissent, and the country consistently ranks among the “worst of the worst” countries in democracy watchdog Freedom House’s annual survey of political and civil rights.

Saudi Arabia follows the ultra-conservative Wahhabi strain of Sunni Islam, and the public practice of any religion other than Islam is prohibited. Its legal system is governed by Sharia law, and a 2015 study from Middle East Eye noted that Saudi Arabia and Islamic State prescribed near-identical punishments, such as amputation and stoning for similar crimes. The government is also renowned for carrying out public executions after trials that Amnesty International condemns as “grossly unfair”; Amnesty describes the Saudi “justice system” as “riddled with holes. ”

Given the two countries’ divergent values, the U.S.-Saudi alliance relies almost entirely on overlapping economic and national security interests. The United States long relied on Saudi Arabia as an oil supplier, a steadfast beacon of opposition to communism and a huge buyer of American arms. The Saudis, meanwhile, depend on the United States to protect their security.

Despite these long-standing ties, Saudi Arabia now harms American national interests as much as it helps them.

First, the Saudis and the United States diverge over American policy toward Iran. Saudi Arabia sees itself locked in a sectarian and geopolitical struggle with Iran for Middle East supremacy. Riyadh is concerned the deal that lifted sanctions against Iran in exchange for Tehran dismantling it’s nuclear infrastructure will empower Iran to pursue a more aggressive foreign policy in the region. Riyadh also fears abandonment by Washington, and worries the nuclear deal is only the first step in a process that could lead to its replacement by Iran as the United States’ primary Persian Gulf ally.

President Barack Obama, by contrast, describes the nuclear agreement with Iran as “a very good deal” that “achieves one of our most critical security objectives.” While no indication exists that the United States seeks to replace Saudi Arabia with Iran, it makes sense for Washington to explore other areas where American and Iranian interests may overlap. As the United States and Iran continue to feel each other out, we can expect tensions between Washington and Riyadh to grow.

Second, Saudi Arabia executed al-Nimr despite concerns expressed by the United States that doing so could damage hopes for peace in Syria. Ending the Syrian war remains a priority for the United States, since Washington hopes a Syrian settlement will lead all parties to unite against Islamic State.

Saudi Arabia and Iran support opposing sides in Syria’s civil war, and the prospects for peace depend significantly on cooperation from both countries. With the two countries now at each others’ throats due to the Saudis’ execution of al-Nimr, the Obama administration believes Saudi-Iranian tensions could “blow up” Washington’s objectives in Syria.

Third, thanks to the shale oil boom in the United States, American dependence on Saudi oil has dropped dramatically. According to a Citibank report, by 2020 the United States may produce so much domestic oil that it would become a net exporter, completely freeing itself from any reliance on Persian Gulf imports. Moreover, the Saudis also rely on the American market. They and many other OPEC members produce what’s called “heavy sour” crude, and the U.S. refinery system is the most attractive market for this type of petroleum. As the United States reduces imports, the Saudis must scramble to find other markets such as China. Unfortunately for Riyadh — as the Russians can attest — the Chinese give no quarter when holding the upper hand in negotiations.

The Saudis understand the consequences of the United States’ reduced reliance on imported oil. To retain market share, the Saudis launched an assault on American shale oil producers, hoping to drive them out of business by flooding the market with Saudi oil. The Saudis hope this leads oil prices to recover, but in the meantime much of the American shale oil industry could face bankruptcy. While cheap oil is good for American consumers, at a certain point the downside for the United States’ economy may outweigh the upsides. Of course, if the United States regains a greater dependence on foreign oil, the Saudis will be the ones to benefit.

Finally — and most importantly — the United States must accept the fact that Saudi Arabia is a major contributor to worldwide Islamic extremism. Washington policymakers clearly understand this. In a leaked Wikileaks cable, former Secretary of State — and now presidential aspirant — Hillary Clinton stated “donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.”

In a 2014 speech at Harvard, Vice President Joseph Biden called out Saudi Arabia and others for contributing to the rise of Islamic State, saying “those allies’ policies wound up helping to arm and build allies of al Qaeda and eventually the terrorist Islamic State.”

In a highly unusual public rebuke in December, Germany’s vice-chancellor Sigmar Gabriel accused the Saudis of funding extremism in the West. “Wahhabi mosques all over the world are financed by Saudi Arabia. Many Islamists who are a threat to public safety come from these communities in Germany. We have to make clear to the Saudis that the time of looking away is over,” Gabriel said.

Saudi Arabia denies funding extremism, and in 2014 called claims it supported Islamic State “false allegations” and a “malicious falsehood.” Moreover, the Saudi Ambassador to the United Kingdom recently posted a letter charging critics of playing the “blame game” and called the accusations “an insult to our government, our people, and our faith.”

Even so, Gabriel is right — and it’s high time Washington policymakers take a good look at the long-term future of the American-Saudi relationship.

 

Report: Russia Defeats NATO in Baltic War Game

February 5, 2016

by John Vandiver

Stars and Stripes 

STUTTGART, Germany — A Russian offensive on NATO territory in the Baltics would overwhelm underarmed alliance forces in a matter of hours, leaving NATO with a harsh dilemma: Launch a long, bloody counteroffensive or concede defeat.

That is the conclusion of a new report by Rand Corp., which conducted a series of elaborate war games from summer 2014 to spring 2015 with the assistance of numerous American military commands and experts.

“As presently postured, NATO cannot successfully defend the territory of its most exposed members,” the Rand Corp. study says.

The findings are likely to come as no surprise to the military’s top officers in Europe, who have been warning that sophisticated Russian anti-aircraft systems could deny allies quick military access to the Baltics. Russia has superior numbers of air and ground forces across the border from the vulnerable Baltic states, which were once part of the Soviet Union. However, Russia has repeatedly stressed that it has no territorial designs on the Baltics.

Policymakers must determine whether the risks of potential Russian aggression are strong enough to demand the kind of reinforcements that could thwart a Russian assault. The costs of placing such a force in the region would be substantial but manageable for a NATO alliance with a collective gross domestic product of more than $35 trillion, Rand says.

The report was issued just days before the release next week of the Pentagon’s 2017 budget, which includes plans to add a brigade’s worth of pre-positioned tanks and other heavy equipment in Europe, where the Pentagon now rotates one heavy brigade. The U.S. maintains only two infantry brigades permanently in Europe and no heavy units.There are about 65,000 troops in total forward stationed. A plan to quadruple investment in the European Reassurance Initiative to $3.4 billion will add several thousand more rotational troops in a plan to increase operations along NATO’s eastern flank, but falls far short of Rand’s recommendations.

The minimum force requirement, according to Rand: seven NATO brigades, including three heavy armored brigades — adequately supported by air power, land-based fire support and troops ready to fight at the onset of hostilities, Rand says. Adding three U.S. Army armored brigades, with associated artillery and enabling units, would come with an up-front price tag of about $13 billion. Annual operating cost would be roughly $2.7 billion, Rand says.

The force could not mount a sustained defense of the region, but it would buy allies time to assemble a larger force. The presence of multiple brigades and air power also would “fundamentally change the strategic picture as seen from Moscow,” according to Rand.

“While this deterrent posture would not be inexpensive in absolute terms, it is not unaffordable, especially in comparison with the potential costs of failing to defend NATO’s most exposed and vulnerable allies,” Rand says.

Still, many NATO allies would likely balk at such a plan. Germany, for example, has long opposed any placement of permanent NATO forces in the Baltics or eastern Europe, which Berlin contends would be an unnecessary provocation to Russia. Moscow contends such a move would violate a 1997 NATO agreement that it says limits the types of forces that can be placed near its border.

Also, there is little evidence that Russia intends to launch any kind of formal attack on a NATO state, which could trigger a collective alliance military response under NATO’s Article 5 provision that an attack on one member demands a response from all.

“I think it’s highly unlikely that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin would contemplate an invasion of the Baltics, be it a traditional conventional invasion or a more covert hybrid invasion of the sort executed in Ukraine,” said Robert Person, a Russia expert at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. “It is hard to see what Russia would gain by doing so, as I do not believe that Putin is trying to reassemble the original territory of the Soviet Union.”

NATO’s collective security pact on its own should give Moscow pause before launching an attack on the U.S.-led NATO alliance, whose $1 trillion in defense spending dwarfs Russia’s.

“My sense is that Putin understands the strategic implications of such an adventure, an understanding that would make him think long and hard about launching a war that he cannot afford and cannot win in the long run,” Person said. “In the short run, however, it is absolutely worth reminding him of the credibility of NATO’s deterrent threat.”

If NATO sought to establish a force capable of countering a Russian offensive, Moscow could elect to further build up its own regional forces, setting off a race for the upper hand.

At NATO headquarters, officials said they have taken note of the Rand report and pointed to recent alliance actions aimed at improving overall readiness, such as doubling the number of NATO’s crisis response forces to 40,000 troops.

“NATO is well-prepared to defend all allies. Our commitment to Article 5 is rock-solid,” a NATO official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Strengthening NATO’s position in the east will be on the agenda of a defense ministers’ meeting in Brussels next week.”We are now assessing the right balance between a forward presence and our ability to reinforce in a crisis,” the NATO official said.

During Rand’s war game scenario, allies had one week to assemble forces to counter an onslaught on the Baltics. The Russian attackers, comprised of troops from the Western Military District and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, deploy 27 maneuver battalions in a short-warning attack to occupy Estonia and Latvia. In the scenario, allies were able to mobilize light infantry units in time, but the force proved inadequate, presenting NATO with “a rapid fait accompli.”

“The outcome was, bluntly, a disaster for NATO,” the Rand report says. “Across multiple plays of the game, Russian forces eliminated or bypassed all resistance and were at the gates of or actually entering Riga, Tallinn, or both, between 36 and 60 hours after the start of hostilities.”

If NATO sought to establish a deterrent force in the Baltics, air cover would be necessary to protect the maneuver of ground forces, the war games found.

“Against an adversary, such as Russia, that poses multidimensional threats, air power must be employed from the outset of hostilities to enable land operations, and land power must be leveraged to enable air power.”

Also, NATO would require a better command structure to plan and execute operations in a fast-unfolding crisis.

“This is not something that can safely be left to a pickup team to ‘do on the day’; it requires careful preparation,” Rand says.

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