TBR News May 10, 2016
The Voice of the White House
Washington, D.C. May 10, 2016: “As the Saudis run out of oil and as American consumption of same (the biggest in the world) increases, the neo-cons and business oligarchs are pressuring the White House to make more efforts at destablizing Putin’s Russia. The puppet masters are especially outraged that Putin is making allies with Mid-East oil rich countries that are not controlled by the slipping Saudis and are livid that his aircraft flattened the IS shipments of stolen Syrian oil to the greedy Turks whose corrupt president and his family were making huge money selling the looted oil to the US via Israel. Washington beefs up its decaying military and sternly warns the world that it could rule them all by force. With growing domestic problems, Washington cannot even rule its own restive people, let alone any resource-rich but weaker country.”
The Müller Washington Journals 1948-1951
At the beginning of December, 1948, a German national arrived in Washington, D.C. to take up an important position with the newly-formed CIA. He was a specialist on almost every aspect of Soviet intelligence and had actively fought them, both in his native Bavaria where he was head of the political police in Munich and later in Berlin as head of Amt IV of the State Security Office, also known as the Gestapo.
His name was Heinrich Müller.
Even as a young man, Heini Müller had kept daily journals of his activities, journals that covered his military service as a pilot in the Imperial German air arm and an apprentice policeman in Munich. He continued these journals throughout the war and while employed by the top CIA leadership in Washington, continued his daily notations.
This work is a translation of his complete journals from December of 1948 through September of 1951.
When Heinrich Müller was hired by the CIA¹s station chief in Bern, Switzerland, James Kronthal in 1948, he had misgivings about working for his former enemies but pragmatism and the lure of large amounts of money won him over to what he considered to be merely an extension of his life-work against the agents of the Comintern. What he discovered after living and working in official Washington for four years was that the nation¹s capital was, in truth, what he once humorously claimed sounded like a cross between a zoo and a lunatic asylum. His journals, in addition to personal letters, various reports and other personal material, give a very clear, but not particularly flattering, view of the inmates of both the zoo and the asylum.
Müller moved, albeit very carefully, in the rarefied atmosphere of senior policy personnel, military leaders, heads of various intelligence agencies and the White House itself. He was a very observant, quick-witted person who took copious notes of what he saw. This was not a departure from his earlier habits because Heinrich Müller had always kept a journal, even when he was a lowly Bavarian police officer, and his comments about personalities and events in the Third Reich are just as pungent and entertaining as the ones he made while in America.
The reason for publishing this phase of his eventful life is that so many agencies in the United States and their supporters do not want to believe that a man of Müller¹s position could ever have been employed by their country in general or their agency in specific.
Thursday, 10 March 1949
The trial of the communist leaders began in New York on Monday. It promises to be a long circus. We should simply remove these individuals from society and reeducate them in a work camp. At least they would do honest work for a change. Typical responses from those accused of communist membership. Truman is now discriminating against Negroes and Jews because so many of them have been communists. I doubt if this will make any difference and the American public has its own opinions on the matter. After all, they had from 1933 to 1945 to see what was going on and the screeches of a few left-wing lawyers and sympathizers with Stalin won’t make much of a dent.
I am supposed to prepare an overview of the Soviet infiltration into the American government for my religious friend who intends to give it to Senator McCarthy. He views him as much more valuable than Nixon because the latter is not given to excesses. From what I have heard of the Senator, I have no real interest in meeting with him except for his support of Peiper. My son was in his unit and I suppose that it would be a good idea to establish some kind of a connection with the Senator for the future. But not, I am urgently advised, too close a connection. We could meet at Georgetown University in some place probably over a weekend.
He is not to come here.
- sent most of the known and active Soviet agents which Roosevelt allowed into the now-disbanded OSS over to the State Department so they could be fired from there. It could be something to pursue since that department is filled with perverts and left-wing chickens. We can put a fox in with them and see how he does.
Joseph McCarthy, who was to spearhead the anti-communist drive in America, had little regard for diplomacy and would prove to be a terrible thorn in the side of the liberal movement in the United States. Stunned by the death of their champion, Roosevelt, the active liberals and communists now found themselves under a mounting attack from the American right. Their position was not helped by the beginning of the Cold War in which the once-admired and supported Stalin was being cast as an enemy by the American war party.
Investigations into Roosevelt’s left-wing activists both inside and out of the government was causing a great deal of anxiety in the faculty clubs of most American universities as well as in the headquarters of labor unions and in the Hollywood movie industry.
The strong and growing reaction to a decade of aggressive pro-Soviet liberalism was only just manifesting its revenge.
The business about Peiper refers to SS Lt. Colonel Joachim Peiper of the 1st SS-Panzer-Division “Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler.” During the course of the Ardennes battle in late 1944, men of his armored unit were advancing against the Americans when they encountered a mass of disarmed American prisoners of war. Firing broke out and a considerable number of prisoners were killed, some when fleeing. Their bodies were neatly stacked in a nearby field so as to clear the road.
Later, the Americans claimed the SS had murdered them and the Germans countered that the incident was typical of mobile warfare and that their troops thought they had encountered an advancing enemy.
Many of the German officers involved in the episode had been tortured while prisoners of war to extort confessions. When this information was later made public, those who had been later convicted at a “War Crimes’’ trial were pardoned. Müller’s son had served in the Peiper unit but after the Ardennes battle when the unit was in Hungary. In any case, McCarthy took up the defense of the Germans to the fury of liberal elements.
The Republican Senator from Wisconsin was known to drink and was also well known for his intemperate behavior, hence Müller’s reluctance to allow him into his home.
When McCarthy accused the State Department of sheltering over eighty known communists, he was entirely correct but he erred in his implications that these individuals were in any way connected with State Department diplomatic affairs.
After the end of the Second World War, there was an official movement in the U.S. government to reduce the size of the bureaucracy in general and to weed out what were viewed as rabid communists by many senior officials.
The primary nesting places of these individuals was the Office of Strategic Services or OSS and the Office of War Information or OWI. Both agencies had knowingly recruited communists during the course of the war. In the case of the former, the purpose was to primarily block anti-Soviet partisan movements in an Eastern Europe that Stalin wished to completely control after the war. In the case of the latter, this agency was designed to manufacture and broadcast official American propaganda to the public during the war and most especially to put forward the goals of the Soviet dictator in an acceptable light.
The Senator had been shown lists of these OSS and OWI rejects but was not allowed to copy them so his future conduct in refusing to present proof of what were completely accurate statements was not based on his invention of the claim but because he was unable to lay his hands on the relevant documentation.
Left-wing attackers of McCarthy, who have assumed epic proportions in the hagiology of American liberals, have made a great deal of his refusal to present actual proof of his sensationalistic charges but as the original list had come from the White House, those who leaked it to the Senator deemed it inadvisable to reveal their sources.
Tuesday, 15 March 1949
The Soviet agent, G.(ubitchev, ed.) refuses an attorney but will be tried probably within a month. He has been refused diplomatic immunity because he is connected with the United Nations and not the Soviet Embassy. The Coplon woman was sleeping with him and is supposed to have admitted everything. The Russians are the world’s greatest exploiters of sex as a weapon to lure possible agents. People often are very lonely in their empty lives and the genitals with which so many people think have no reasoning power.
As part of my program to become an authentic American, I have been reading a great deal on the history of my new country.
Lincoln, the President who freed the slaves made a comment about the common people but I have rewritten it from my own experience. God must love stupid people because He has made so many of them.
We opened two brothels in Berlin, Kitty and the other one, to trap diplomats and they worked very well with both sexes. Some of my early superiors enjoyed listening to the recordings but I did not. I was never one to enjoy watching dogs fuck in the streets but I can’t speak about the motives of others. All of them, victims and victimizers, are gone now and I am enjoying my new status with absolutely no regrets.
Angleton went on about a coup attempt against Roosevelt in 1934. He had no part in it and I don’t know whether or not to believe him. I shall have to bring this up to Hoover one of these days to see how much he knows about it.
As it was told to me, the American businessmen and especially the banks were absolutely terrified of Roosevelt’s total financial ineptness in his attempts to solve the problems of the economic collapse here in the early 1930s. He was not an especially intelligent man but liked to pose as one. He hired a train full of very left-wing people from the universities to give him ideas but these ideas were basically either purely communist or dealt with the planned economy, neither of which worked then nor work now.
The financial situation was precarious and because Roosevelt was such an utter imbecile about this, many people in power determined to remove him.
I was told that the prime movers behind this coup were the Morgan Bank, the chemical company of DuPont, Bernard Baruch and the American Army which was represented by MacArthur. This general, of whom Roosevelt was genuinely terrified, now is the de facto Emperor of Japan but R. managed to get him out of the country and make him head of the so-called Army of the Philippines. He was given a large salary and the title of Field Marshal but he had to stay out of this country.
The plot, as Angleton told it to me, was to have the Army arrest Roosevelt, put him in custody and appoint a ruling council with MacArthur running it and the big bankers supporting him, but in private. I think the General would have loved this but instead they picked another General to be the figurehead. MacArthur was the Chief of Staff and a serving officer so they chose an old officer with a splendid military record and not a great deal of sense.
This was not a well-kept secret in Washington, if one even breaks wind; news of this immediately spreads all over the capital within minutes. There are no secrets here, believe me.
This was discovered by Hoover, I am told, and he rushed to Roosevelt with it and scared yesterday’s dinner out of him. This was very clever because this coup probably would not have succeeded anyway but it was a real plan and Hoover could prove it. The old general admitted that he had been approached but actually wished no part of it. He said he had not reported it because he really didn’t believe it but also wanted to gather more information.
This sort of deception I ran into in Germany after July 20. Fromm, for instance, had no real part in the plot but knew about it and hoped it would succeed. Hitler had him shot but only after Fromm had shot Stauffenberg. That I objected to because I would much rather have had S. alive and singing loudly in my office.
The result of this plot was nothing. MacArthur was bribed to leave the country and R. later had him paid a huge sum of money through the Philippine government not to defend that country when the Japanese invaded. A. said that MacArthur refused to order his heavy bombers to attack the Japanese after their attack on America in 1941 and kept these planes on the ground where the Japanese promptly obliterated them. I think MacArthur got his million dollars after this and Roosevelt specifically had him and his staff evacuated by boat. No one else.
- says R. was terrified of the general. I said that we shot such persons with very little difficulty.
- was quite a coward. A man who lied to everyone, pretended to be everyone’s dear friend and then betrayed all like a Borgia. R. would have made a superb Byzantine Emperor.
The plotters were never punished but this attempt had the disastrous effect of driving Roosevelt straight into the protective arms of the communists whom he saw as men who could protect him against any further such plots.
The plot Müller speaks of actually existed but accurate descriptions of it do not. Several writers, among them Charles Higham1 have been terribly outraged that American business actually had financial dealings with the Germans. Higham says that the figurehead General, Smedly Butler, a winner of the Medal of Honor and former Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, had indeed been approached but was horrified and told Roosevelt at once. Higham also claims that the U.S. banking and major industrial interests financed a huge neo-Nazi movement in the United States, which was designed to nullify the truly wondrous programs of Mr. Roosevelt.
The President indeed had absolutely no idea of even basic economics and his cure for the Depression was to acquire enormous sums of money from a frightened Congress and buy legions of unemployed voters with it. Roosevelt detested businessmen and spent much of his reign attacking them with a series of restrictive decrees coupled with occasional threats of total governmental regulatory control.
The Fromm mentioned was Colonel General Friedrich Fromm, head of the German Reserve Army. Stauffenberg worked under him and while Fromm had no active part in the plot to murder Hitler, he was doubtlessly aware of it and was reported to be in sympathy with its aims.
1Higham, Charles, “Trading with the Enemy,” New York, 1983, pp. 162-165.
xxxxxNEWxxxx
The Times, They Are a Changin’!
Get ready for a paradigm shift
May 9, 2016
by Justin Raimondo
AntiWar
In the summer of 1998, just as this web site was getting off the ground, I wrote the following for Chronicles magazine:
“As the U.S. stumbles, or is pushed, into another unwinnable land war in Asia, the anti-war protesters of the future will come from the ranks of the Right. [Patrick] Buchanan, and the editors of this magazine, in alliance with other conservatives and libertarians, stood firm against the war hysteria that preceded Gulf War I. This time around, with the stakes even higher, that same alliance has the potential to expand its ranks to include the overwhelming majority of Americans. Let our rulers unleash the dogs of war to mask their own corruption: they will ignite a social and political explosion that will make the sixties seem relatively tranquil.”
We are witnessing that explosion today, on both sides of the political spectrum and in both major parties. The ease with which Donald Trump and his “America First” program – denounced as “isolationist” by the Beltway elites – has swept the GOP presidential primaries has the media and the political class in a panic. On the left, the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders, who is likewise critical of interventionism, has given frontrunner Hillary Clinton a run for her money.
In short, rebellion is in the air – and, I would even venture to say, the spirit of revolution. Both Sanders and Trump, in their inchoate respective ways, are leading a revolt against the idea that America is and must forever more be the policeman of the world.
While the Sanders movement is chiefly focused on economics, Bernie has been a trenchant critic of liberal imperialism: he has hammered Clinton again and again on her vote authorizing the Iraq war, criticizing her “regime change” policies as Secretary of State in Libya and Syria. Sanders dramatically broke with tradition by suggesting that, yes, the Palestinian people need to have their suffering recognized, and must be treated fairly.
In the GOP, the revolt against interventionism has been more dramatic. Trump started out his campaign attacking the Bushian legacy head on: it took real conviction to stand in front of a Republican audience in North Carolina and declare that we were lied into the Iraq war. When Ron Paul did something quite similar, he was practically booed off the stage – and, although his bravery paid off in a subsequent groundswell of support, in the end the GOP machine rolled over him and his supporters. This time, however, it was the War Party that got rolled, with Trump crushing them in the primaries and going on to become the prospective Republican nominee.
NATO, says Trump, is “very obsolete.” So is the system of alliances that has turned Japan and South Korea into American satellites. “The countries we are defending must pay for the cost of this defense,” he says, “and if not, the US must be prepared to let these countries defend themselves. We have no choice.” No “mainstream” Republican candidate for President has dared say such things since the days of Robert A. Taft – and, remember, they stole the nomination from Taft no less than three times in order to prevent his brand of dreaded “isolationism” from spoiling their racket. This time, however, the “isolationists” have clearly won, and that represents a seismic shift in the American political landscape.
In spite of Trump’s glaring inconsistencies, his anti-interventionist impulses do indeed spring from a central organizing principle. As he put it in his foreign policy oration:
“Instead of trying to spread universal values that not everybody shares or wants, we should understand that strengthening and promoting Western civilization and its accomplishments will do more to inspire positive reforms around the world than military interventions.”This is really the essence of the anti-interventionist stance: while he often contradicts himself, Trump clearly gets it. His victory in the primaries has shifted the foreign policy discourse, displacing the Bushian/neocon worldview with a Trumpian policy of “America First.” And that’s why his effect on the national debate is much more important than the fate of his campaign.
Here, for just one example, is Newt Gingrich being interviewed by Sean Hannity: nine minutes into the interview, Gingrich delivers a slashing indictment of the interventionist foreign policy of the Bush years. Laura Ingraham, a prominent conservative columnist, follows up later in the show with similar sentiments.
This is not to say that Trump – or Sanders – augur an era of peace: they don’t. Trump, especially, is unreliable, emotional, and even potentially quite dangerous, should he ever make it into the Oval Office. However, what he has managed to do is redefine the terms of the foreign policy debate. Questioning the bipartisan foreign policy “consensus” is no longer beyond the pale – because there is no “consensus” anymore.
This revolt against the consensus has been building for a long time – ever since the 1990s, when I first began to write about it. And the momentum has been gathering strength, first with Ross Perot, who made “isolationist” noises, then with Pat Buchanan, who challenged the interventionists loudly and consistently: then Ron Paul came along, with his acerbic and uncompromising libertarian critique of empire-building. Now Trump has brought this populist reaction against the globalist vision to the boiling point.
As I’ve pointed out on more than one occasion over the years:
“The War Party, as we have seen, has worn many guises throughout American history. Sometimes it is left-wing, at other times it is a creature of the Right. The party of peace is likewise prone to switch polarities. If you live long enough, you can start out your life as a liberal, and wind up a right-wing reactionary without undergoing any fundamental change of views. That is what happened to H. L. Mencken, who was considered the guru of the freethinking ‘flaming youth’ of the 1920s and early 30s – and later consigned to the fever swamps of ‘right-wing extremism’ for his opposition to the war and his visceral hatred of Roosevelt. The same was true of Albert Jay Nock, and John T. Flynn: their views did not change so much as the perception of them did. Opposition to war, imperialism, and the centralized State was ‘left’ at the turn of the century and ‘right’ by the 1930s. In the 1960s it was considered ‘radical’ – that is, radical left – to oppose our policy of global intervention, whereas the noninterventionist of today is far more likely to be a conservative Republican.”
We are now in the midst of a polarity-switch, and that accounts for the political turmoil we see on both sides of the political spectrum. Old positions are being challenged, new paradigms are being advanced, and what we thought we knew about American politics is being turned upside down – and inside-out.
These insurgent candidates are symptoms of something far larger than the individuals involved. No, they won’t save us, or rid us of the Empire – but their success means that the American people are yearning for change.
I’ve been predicting it for years, and now that this Great Rebellion is finally upon us, we here at Antiwar.com are going to take full advantage of the greatest opportunity to advance our foreign policy views since the upsurges that accompanied the Vietnam war. The blockade on new ideas in the foreign policy realm has been broken – and that’s our cue to step forward and provide some fresh thinking.
Who Would Win If America, Russia And China Went To War
orrazz.com
Let’s compare these world’s three strongest military nations in 4 categories:
- Stealth fighters
While America holds the current stealth jet lead with the only fielded fifth-generation fighter, Russia and China are both gunning for it.
The J-31 debuted in air shows in 2014 and is the most advanced current threat, and the J-20, which may have just entered full-scale production, is probably a match for the F-35 if not the F-22.
Meanwhile, China is developing four stealth fighters.
The J-31 debuted in air shows in 2014 and is the most advanced current threat, and the J-20, which may have just entered full-scale production, is probably a match for the F-35 if not the F-22.
The two newest designs, the J-23 and J-25, are mostly rumors and Chinese propaganda right now.
Russia is developing only one stealth fighter but it has capabilities that some put on par with the F-22.
The T-50 will likely enter service in late 2016 or early 2017. Also known as the PAK FA, it’s less stealthy than the Raptor but more maneuverable. The F-22 would likely get a jump on the Russians in a war, but would be in serious trouble if it was spotted first.
Likely winner: As long as the other planes are still more hypothetical than real, the F-22 remains the clear victor.
Still, Raptor drivers can’t rest easy knowing that multiple aircraft are being developed with the primary mission of bringing them down, and those planes are being developed with engineers who have the F-22’s schematics.
- Tanks
The US Army fielded the first M-1 Abrams in 1980.
But the tank has undergone so many upgrades, including those to the armor, drivetrain, and weapons systems, that everything but the shell is new.
It has a 120mm main gun, great electronics, remote-operated weapon stations, and an armor configuration that incorporates uranium, Kevlar, reactive, and Chobham armor layers.
Russia is developing the prototype T-14 on the Armata platform, but right now it relies on the T-90A, which is still an awesome tank.
One even survived a direct hit from a TOW missile in Syria. Originally fielded in 2004, the T-90A features an autoloader, reactive armor, a remotely-operated machine gun, and a 125mm cannon. The crew can fire anti-tank guided missiles from the main gun
Like Russia, China fields a few varieties of tanks and has new ones in development. It’s go-to for tank-on-tank engagements is the Type 99. It features a 125mm smoothbore gun with auto-loader that can also fire missiles.
The tank has been upgraded with reactive armor and is thought to be nearly as survivable in combat as Western or Russian tanks.
Likely winner: Strictly looking at the gear in a one-on-one fight, it’s a draw. But America has more top-tier tanks and a better history of training crews, plus (Ukraine notwithstanding) US forces have more recent combat experience than their rivals.
- Surface ships
With the largest Navy in the world, America has any surface fight in the bag if it happens in the middle of the ocean.
The crown jewels are the Navy’s 10 full-sized aircraft carriers and 9 landing helicopter docks. But the Navy’s technological advantages and sheer size might not be enough to overcome China’s missiles or Russia’s diesel subs if it had to fight in enemy waters.
Russia still struggles with force projection, but the launch of Kalibr cruise missiles at ground targets in Syria proved that Russia has found a way to give even their small ships some serious bite.
An anti-ship version of the missile is thought to be just as capable and, if fired in a large enough salvo, may be able to overcome US ship defenses like the Phalanx. Russia also fields the Club-K missile system, a land-attack and anti-ship cruise missile system that can be hidden in shipping containers.
China is pushing for a maritime revolution in both its Coast Guard and the People’s Liberation Army Navy. The Coast Guard is used to establish sovereignty in contested waters and is getting the world’s largest and most heavily armed Coast Guard ships. The Navy features hundreds of surface ships with advanced missiles and other weapons in addition to great sensors.
Likely winner: The US Navy is still the undisputed champ across the world but it would take heavy losses if it fought China or Russia at home. A full-scale invasion might even fail if planners aren’t careful.
- Submarines
The US Navy has a staggering 14 ballistic missile submarines with a combined 280 nuclear missiles that can each wipe out an enemy city, four guided missile submarines with 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles each, and 54 nuclear attack submarines. They’re technologically advanced, heavily armed, and stealthy.
Russia has only 60 submarines but those are very capable. Russia’s nuclear subs are at or near par with their Western counterparts for stealth while their diesel boats are some of the quietest in the world.
Russia is also working on new submarine weapons including a 100-megaton, city-killing nuclear torpedo. To top it all off, their crews were already good but are getting better.
China has only five nuclear attack submarines, 53 diesel attack submarines, and four nuclear ballistic missile submarines, but they’re working on more. China’s subs are easy to track, but the US and its Pacific allies are deploying sophisticated listening devices to keep track of them anyway.
Likely winner: The US submarine fleet wins for both power projection onto land and sub-on-sub combat, but the gap is narrowing. Chinese and Russian innovations and the rapid construction in new shipyards will make the ocean a more dangerous place for American submariners.
Полное Внесение в список Всех Единиц Флота российской Республики
“The Entire Russian Fleet”
Translated from the Russian
Ref: RSV 1801-02-115689//bd:g.81r
******Noforn******
February 23rd is traditionally celebrated as the Soviet Army Day (now called the Homeland Defender’s Day), and few people remember that it is also the Day of Russia’s Navy. To compensate for this apparent injustice, Kommersant Vlast analytical weekly has compiled The Entire Russian Fleet directory. The directory lists all 238 battle ships and submarines of Russia’s Naval Fleet, with their board numbers, year of entering service, name and rank of their commanders. It also contains the data telling to which unit a ship or a submarine belongs. For first-class ships, there are schemes and tactic-technical characteristics. So detailed data on all Russian Navy vessels, from missile cruisers to base type trawlers, is for the first time compiled in one directory, making it unique in the range and amount of information it covers. Although several new ships and submarines have been built for Russia’s Navy recently, the fleet is in depression. Severe problems and disproportions threaten to completely undermine its military potential. Chief danger lies in the reduction in the number of vessels, their rapid ageing, and the lack of adequate substitution with modern ships. Negative trends in the Navy’s development have not been overcome, and Russia keeps facing the risk of losing its fleet.
Lopsided Development of Strategic Nuclear Forces
When the Navy’s financing was drastically reduced after 1991, developing the Naval Strategic Nuclear Forces (NSNF) became the priority. The NSNF were declared to be the basis of Russia’s nuclear-missile shield. Consequently, the country got involved in building an expensive series of Project 955 strategic nuclear submarine cruisers. It consumed the major part of financial resources allocated for the fleet’s development, and the trend keeps strengthening. In 2007, around 70 percent of funds allocated for the entire battleship building were spent on constructing just three Project 955 and Project 955A atomic-powered vessels, not to mention the test program for Bulava ballistic missile, intended as their armament.
While building new missile carriers, the Navy kept massively removing old ones from service. By now, there have remained in the Russian fleet just 12 acting submarines with ballistic missiles (six Project 667BDRM “Delfin” built in the 1980s, and six older submarines of Project 667BDR “Kalmar”). While 667BDR submarines are living their last years, 667BDRM ones undergo mid-life repair and modernization, which will allow extending their service term till 2020. They are now being re-equipped with modified R-29RMU2 “Sineva” ballistic missiles, able to carry up to ten warheads. First four serial Sineva missiles were supplied to the fleet in 2006, and 12 more missiles were produced in 2007, which allowed re-arming Tula atomic-powered ship. Meanwhile, modernizing these vessels consumes major part of money that the Navy spends on vessel repair. It hampers the work on ships of other classes (including non-strategic atomic submarines).
The situation is logical, because there is an ambitious and hardly feasible task to maintain the fleet of atomic missile carriers at the same level as the U.S. does (the U.S. has 14 submarines with ballistic missiles), while the funding in Russia is incomparably lower. By the way, the Russian Naval Fleet’s budget in 2007 (if estimated in U.S. dollars) was nearly 50 times less than the U.S. Navy’s budget. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy is not building new missile carriers at all, and plans to begin replacing its Ohio submarines not earlier than in 2026.
Russia’s focus on developing the NSNF looks highly disputable. Supporters of this state of affairs (including the Naval Fleet’s top officials) point at high battle durability and survival potential of strategic submarines in case of first nuclear missile attack from an enemy. However, they hush up two fundamental circumstances.
First, Russia’s strategic atomic-powered vessels have low index of operative effort. Even in its best times, the Fleet was able to simultaneously maintain in military service not over 10-15 percent of its submarines (while the U.S. Navy maintains over 50 percent). Consequently, Russian missile carriers spend most of their time in military bases, thus being an extremely easy target.
Second, the Fleet’s degrading General-Purpose Naval Forces are evidently not enough to secure battle durability (protection from enemy forces’ impact) for strategic submarine cruisers at sea. When all funds are spent on building and repairing missile carriers, while forces supposed to cover them at sea are not renewed and are reduced, it is impossible to speak of the NSNF’s high survival potential. Meanwhile, the opponents able to threaten Russia’s strategic nuclear submarines (U.S and NATO fleets) have overwhelming advantage in forces at sea. By the way, the estimations meant to justify the NSNF’s advantages, including the cost-effectiveness index, usually ignore the expenditures necessary for deploying support and cover forces. However, those forces include not only atomic submarines, but also considerable groupings of surface ships, anti-submarine aircrafts, stationary hydro-acoustic lighting system, air-defense of bases, coast infrastructure, and many other important elements.
Reduction of Common-Purpose Forces
Investing nearly all funds in the naval strategic forces, Russia is spending resources on power fit for just one (and least likely) scenario of an armed conflict – the universal nuclear war. Meanwhile, solving the Fleet’s many other tasks of peaceful time and war time can be entrusted to the general-purpose non-nuclear forces only.
Strategic submarine missile-carriers are not necessary to solve a multitude of tasks like demonstrating the flag and the military presence, struggling against terrorism, participating in international and peacekeeping missions, evacuating civilians, transferring troops, guarding the coast, territorial waters and economic zone, protecting fishing and trade, securing the extraction and transportation of hydrocarbons. Just as strategic nuclear submarines will not be necessary in local conflicts. Meanwhile, the growing combat potential of the fleets of Russia’s neighbors and developing countries raises the question whether the reduced Russian general-purpose naval forces would be able enough to counteract limited aggressive actions, especially since Russia’s Naval Forces are so disconnected among the fronts.
The funds allocated to the Fleet for non-strategic components are not enough for complete new ship-building. Moreover, it is not enough even for repairing the existing vessels, which now rapidly become worthless, get removed from service, and become written off.
Once most numerous in the world, Russia’s submarine forces suffered severe reduction in the 1990s. The Russian Naval Fleet now has less nuclear submarines than the U.S. Navy does, and tends to further decline. There is practically no construction of new multi-purpose atomic submarines for the Russian Fleet. As an exception, Project 885 “Severodvinsk” submarine has been under construction since 1993. However, it will enter service not earlier than in 2010. What is worse, only six out of two tens of the Fleet’s multi-purpose atomic submarines were repaired in the last decade. Moreover, each repair dragged on for many years.
To replenish the fleet of diesel-electric submarines, new Project 677 “Saint-Petersburg” submarine was under construction at Admiralteiskie Verfi dockyard since 1997. It was launched in 2004, but its entering the service was delayed due to numerous imperfections.
The Fleet’s above-water forces keep being reduced now. Back in February 2005, Then Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Naval Fleet Vladimir Kuroedov said that battle ships are expected to leave service massively after 2010, without being replaced by new ones, and, consequently, not over fifty ships will remain by 2020. With so small a fleet, Russia’s Navy will be incapable of safeguarding the national security even in the nearest sea zone.
Unfortunately, the trend has not been overcome in recent years. “Soviet Union Fleet Admiral Kuznetsov” is the only aircraft-carrier that has remained in the Russian fleet. It is the first and the last Soviet heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser with springboard start and horizontal landing for airplanes. The ship certainly is of great importance for the Fleet both in prestige and practice. It is a school for deck aviation, which allows preserving and storing up the experience that might prove useful in the future. However, the ship’s technical condition is in decadence, and it is no longer a combat-ready unit. The matter is aggravated by the difficulty of training the pilots for the 279th independent naval fighter air regiment, which now has just 19 deck fighter jets Su-33.
Due to economic reasons, construction of new aircraft-carriers is a matter of far future, although there are design works going on now.
Escort battle ships are in a difficult situation as well. Project 956 stream-turbine destroyers have unreliable high-pressure boilers, which require costly and highly qualified technical maintenance, while the Fleet is now unable to provide it. So, just eight out of 17 built ships of that type have remained in the fleet by now, and not over three of them are in working order. Project 1155 large anti-submarine ships with gas-turbine power installations are in a somewhat better situation.
Project 22350 frigate now represents the class of ocean-zone prospective ships. “Soviet Union Fleet Admiral Sergei Gorshkov” is the first ship in the series. Its construction began in 2006 at Severnaya Verf dockyard. The construction of Project 12441 new-generation patrol ship “Novik” began in Kaliningrad in 1997 with great pomp. However, it suffered unfortunate fate: due to its technical complexity and high cost, they decided to remake it into “Borodino” training ship. Instead, the construction of simpler and cheaper Project 20380 corvettes began in 2001. “Steregushchy” lead ship is ready. However, due to financial and technical reasons, the construction of Project 22350 and Project 20380 vessels is delayed, although the Fleet optimistically plans to have up to 20 frigates and 40 corvettes accordingly.
Mosquito fleet (it includes rocket boats and artillery boats) has reduced by many times as well, and is not being replenished. The Fleet has practically stopped developing its mine-sweeper forces. Russian mine-sweepers’ major drawback is their lack of modern automatic systems for destroying mines along the course of a ship.
Large-scale modernization of the Fleet’s vessels is out of the question now. From 1991 on, qualitative development of Russia’s above-water naval forces has come to a standstill. So, those surface ships and boats which have remained in service are technically 20-30 years behind, and they lag more and more behind modern requirements and foreign vessels of corresponding types.
Two Fleets for Four Fronts
Financing the Northern Fleet’s and the Pacific Fleet’s common-purpose forces still allows maintaining in service at least a minimal number of ships able to secure battle durability for submarine missile-carriers in their coastal regions. On the contrary, the Baltic Fleet and the Back Sea Fleet have lost their combat capability, and can only carry out parade/representation functions now.
The Russian Fleet’s crisis is aggravated by its historic curse – the geographic disconnection of forces among four (or five, if counting the Caspian Sea Fleet) sea fronts, which makes it extremely difficult to maneuver among them. That is the reason why Russia has been chronically weak on each of its sea fronts.
The Northern Fleet can so far be considered the only oceanic fleet of Russia. However, its common-purpose forces have few vessels for implementing combat tasks – just three Project 949A nuclear submarines, two tens of atomic multi-purpose and diesel-electric submarines, aircraft-carrier “Admiral Kuznetsov”, missile cruisers “Peter the Great” and “Marshall Ustinov”, and several smaller ships. It allows securing the sea patrol by one strategic submarine missile cruiser, and periodical patrolling by some submarines and surface ships. Low combat-readiness of the only aircraft-carrier hampers forming more or less effective groupings for actions in the open sea. So, the Northern Fleet can now apply its forces only for a defense operation near Russia’s coast or for covering nuclear missile-carriers deployment in coastal regions. The Fleet’s inability to secure on-schedule repair of the vessels puts the Northern Fleet at risk of losing its aircraft-carrier, a number of missile cruisers, torpedo boat destroyers, and Project 949A submarines. In that case, the Northern Fleet will eventually turn into a flotilla.
The Pacific Fleet has now almost completely fallen into two groupings – in Kamchatka and in Primorie. They are almost devoid of operative connection. Kamchatka’s above-water forces are practically liquidated. It reduces to zero the ability to fully secure strategic submarines’ combat duty, although it is here where new Project 955 missile-carriers are to be supplied. The Pacific Fleet’s forces in Primorie have completely lost their nuclear submarines, and now constitute a small unit headed by “Variag” missile cruiser. The Pacific Fleet’s technical maintenance and vessel repair has always been the worst among all Russian fleets.
Russia has completely lost its century-long supremacy in the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea. Both fleets are now unable to counteract even the united naval groupings of NATO-neighboring countries, not to mention their inability to blockade strait zones. The Black Sea Fleet is a quaint mixture of solitary ships of different types, most of which now have museum value.
There are no prospects for the above-water fleet’s renovation for the coming 10-15 years. Although, several new-type vessels’ construction has been initiated recently (Project 22350 frigate, five Project 20380 corvettes, three Project 21630 small artillery ships, Project 11711 large landing ship). However, the real amount of financing turns all these programs into protracted construction. The total number of ships planned to be built under the State Weaponry Program for 2007-2015, even if it is successfully and fully implemented, will not allow counting on the equal replacement of ageing ships and the formation of homogeneous units of new-type vessels. Most likely, it will boil down to replenishing some of the fleets with a few single ships.
SECRECY NEWS
From the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2016, Issue No. 42
May 10, 2016
DELIVERY DRONES, CONFEDERATE FLAGS, AND MORE FROM CRS
The growing prospect of the use of drones for commercial delivery purposes is considered in a new memorandum from the Congressional Research Service.
“Can you prevent a drone from flying over your house to deliver a package to your neighbor? Until now, that question has been of purely theoretical interest. However, the Senate recently passed a bill that could significantly change the operational landscape for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS or drones) and make these kinds of hypothetical delivery drones a reality,” the CRS memo begins. See Delivery Drones: Coming to the Sky Near You?, CRS Legal Sidebar, May 6, 2016.
U.S. Army policy “allows a small Confederate flag of a size not to exceed that of the U.S. flag to be placed on Confederate graves at private expense, either on Memorial Day or on the day when Confederate Memorial Day is observed” (which is today in North Carolina and South Carolina). However, it must be removed on the first workday thereafter. See Display of the Confederate Flag at Federal Cemeteries in the United States, CRS Insight, updated May 4, 2016.
New Interior Department regulations “aim to reduce the risk of an offshore oil or gas blowout that could jeopardize human safety and harm the environment.” See The Department of the Interior’s Final Rule on Offshore Well Control, CRS Insight, May 5, 2016.
The “Senate should not confirm a nominee to the United States Supreme Court whose professional record or statements display opposition to the Second Amendment freedoms of law-abiding gun owners, including the fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms,” a recent House Resolution opines. A May 6 CRS brief therefore asks: What, If Anything, Has Judge Garland Said About the Second Amendment and Guns?
The amount of money sent by migrants in the U.S. to their home countries exceeded $432 billion in 2015, which is larger than official development assistance and more stable than private capital flows to these countries. See Remittances: Background and Issues for Congress, updated May 9, 2016.
The Administration’s FY2017 budget request for the Department of Justice “includes proposals to either increase funding for existing programs or fund new programs that seek to address several issues that have risen to national prominence recently, such as concerns about gun violence in cities across the country, the relationship between law enforcement and the communities they serve, violent extremism and ‘home-grown’ terrorism, preparing inmates to return to society after a period of incarceration, cybersecurity, and an increase in heroin addiction.” See FY2017 Appropriations for the Department of Justice, May 4, 2016 and FY2017 Appropriations for the Department of Justice Grant Programs, May 4, 2016.
Individuals who are not regular congressional employees can provide assistance to congressional offices as interns, volunteers, fellows, or pages, which are all distinct functions. See Internships in Congressional Offices: Frequently Asked Questions, May 6, 2016.
“The House is expected to vote on a dozen or more bills related to heroin and prescription opioid abuse during the week of May 9, leading some to dub this week ‘Opioid Week’ in the House.” See Active Opioid Legislation in the House: In Brief, May 9, 2016 and The Sentencing Reform Act of 2015 (H.R. 3713): A Summary, May 5, 2016.
The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) “is perhaps the most ambitious [Free Trade Agreement] undertaken by the United States in terms of its size, the breadth and depth of its commitments, its potential evolution, and its geo-political significance.” See The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): Key Provisions and Issues for Congress, May 4, 2016.
Exclusive: Say goodbye to OPEC, powerful Putin pal predicts
May 10, 2016
by Vladimir Soldatkin
Reuters
MOSCOW-Internal differences are killing OPEC and its ability to influence the markets has all but evaporated, top Russian oil executive Igor Sechin told Reuters in some of his harshest remarks ever about the oil cartel.
Russia, which has been hit hard by the oil price collapse, was flirting with the idea of cooperating with OPEC in recent months until tensions between OPEC members Saudi Arabia and Iran ruined a global deal to freeze output.
Sechin – one of the closest allies of President Vladimir Putin – was the only Russian official to consistently oppose the deal with OPEC even after the Kremlin effectively endorsed the plan.
Now that his gloomy predictions about talking to OPEC have come to pass, Sechin feels vindicated and wants to help Russia avoid similar embarrassment in future.
“At the moment a number of objective factors exclude the possibility for any cartels to dictate their will to the market. … As for OPEC, it has practically stopped existing as a united organization.”
“The company (Rosneft) was skeptical from the very beginning about the possibility of reaching any sort of joint agreement with OPEC’s involvement in current conditions,” said Sechin, in comments over the weekend which were embargoed until Tuesday.
“Just to remind you, the only one question with which we responded to those who were interested to know our position: ‘Who should we agree with, and how?’ The development of the situation has clearly shown we were right.”
Sechin’s comments about the end of the era when OPEC could influence prices chime with those of Saudi Arabia’s newly appointed energy minister Khaled al-Falih.
Falih, who took over on Saturday from long-serving Ali al-Naimi, has been very vocal in the past year about his views that the oil market needs to rebalance through low prices and that the Saudis have the resources to wait.
Falih’s ultimate boss, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who oversees Saudi oil policies, has also signaled that the world is moving to a new era where supply and demand rather than OPEC will determine prices.
Sechin, who was born in 1960 – the same year as Falih – is also calling on Russia to abandon any hope that prices can be fixed by anything other than market rebalancing.
“At the moment, key factors which are influencing the market are finance, technology and regulation. We can see this with the example of shale oil which … became a powerful tool of influence on the global market,” Sechin said in the emailed comments.
(Writing by Katya Golubkova and Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Andrew Osborn and William Hardy)
The rise of militias: Patriot candidates are now getting elected in Oregon
Like Trump, the Patriot Movement’s surge is due partly to fear and the perceived indifference of political leaders to places that didn’t recover from the 2008 crash
May 10, 2016
by Jason Wilson
The Guardian
Josephine County, Oregon-Joseph Rice’s manner is a long way from militia stereotypes. The Patriot Movement leader does not present as a crazed gun nut, nor as a blowhard white supremacist. He’s genial, folksy, and matter-of-fact in laying out his views. But talk to him for long enough, and time and again the Patriot Movement leader returns to what really drives him: land.
Rice is running for Josephine county commissioner in south-west Oregon, and believes that the federal government’s current role in land management is illegitimate and even tyrannical.
His campaign is well-advertised around the county and appears well-organised. His growing experience in organising Patriot groups and community watch organisations has polished his skills in retail politics. He’s clearly done a lot of work to make himself politically palatable to conservative rural voters.
He has positions on education (kids should finish high school), legalised marijuana (it presents an economic opportunity) and Donald Trump (“people are tired of career politicians, and they know the country’s in trouble”).
But county supremacy is what really drives him.
It’s this notion that is once again becoming central to local politics in the Pacific north-west. Throughout the region, people whose ideas about land management broadly align with Rice and the now infamous Bundy clan are aiming for elected office in cities, counties and even the state houses.
Taking notice of the trend, progressive watchdog group Political Research Associates even pointed to “a wave of Patriot-affiliated candidates in Oregon”.
Rice talks proudly of his connection with the Oath Keepers – a group which recruits from serving and retired law enforcement officers and military personnel. The group asserts that the oath taken by soldier and police “is to the constitution, not to the politicians”, such that serving personnel are obliged to disobey unconstitutional orders.
He’s also proud of his role in founding the Pacific Patriots network, which aims to coordinate members of various patriot groups in the Pacific north-west. Both groups, and Rice himself, were prominent actors in the standoff at the Malheur national wildlife refuge last January. On Rice’s account, “we acted as a buffer between the federal government and the refuge”.
In practice, this meant that they were a constant presence in and around Burns, Oregon, as the occupation unfolded. Their actions included everything from warning law enforcement officers against attempting a forceful resolution of the situation to forming an armed perimeter around the refuge.
While the Malheur occupiers are mostly in custody awaiting trial, the ideals that fuelled their protest are still very much at large.
Gradually, these ideas are taking hold in local Republican parties. While the nation has been transfixed by the Trump tilt in presidential politics, at the grassroots level in Oregon, candidates who have sympathies and connections with the Patriot movement have already successfully sought office under the GOP banner.
Josephine County local elections are non-partisan, but Rice is clearly well-integrated with the GOP there, meeting reporters in their offices and running as a precinct committee person in the primary.
David Niewert, an author and journalist who has spent decades watching the right, says that as recently as 10 years ago, Rice’s message would have been unpalatable to most GOP voters. But the Tea Party movement established a conduit for more radical ideas “to flow right into the mainstream of the Republican party”.
GOP legislators have been floating these ideas in the Oregon state house. In Oregon Congressional District 3, Carl Wilson is seeking re-election. After an initial stint in the state house between 1998 and 2003, he successfully ran again in 2014. He has wasted no time in pushing an agenda that borrows, like the Bundys, from the so-called “land use movement”. Wilson also lent his support to the Sugar Pine Mine occupation, which was a dress rehearsal for Malheur.
Wilson – who did not respond to interview requests from the Guardian – proposed Oregon Bill HB3240, which sought to set up a taskforce to investigate the transfer of federal lands in Oregon to state ownership.
The bill went nowhere in the Democrat-dominated state house, but Wilson’s stance has drawn a large number of donations. Notably, according to Oregon electoral filings, last year Koch Industries donated $2,500 to his campaign committee.
This kind of support in a sleepy Oregon district only makes sense when it is seen as a part of the right’s bottom-up strategy to push and legitimate the view that federal land management needs to be rolled back.
Those ideas get a hearing in Oregon’s rural counties because communities there are squeezed in a social and economic vice. In the last three decades, counties like Josephine have been hit with a series of shocks.
First, the timber industry declined, though only partly because of changes in federal land management practices. This led to diminished prosperity and a collapse in funding for public services. Federal timber payments declined 90% over the course of the 1990s. Later, the 2008 bust and recession hit rural Oregon hard, and many areas have yet to recover.
Since 2012, when the last federal payments dried up, Josephine County has struggled to provide the basic elements of public order.
The budgets of the sheriff’s office, juvenile justice centre, adult jail and district attorney’s office have been cut by more than 65%. In 2012, they set free county prisoners they could no longer afford to house, and a sheriff’s department that had once boasted 30 deputies was reduced to six. Large sections of the county are still not effectively policed, especially after dark. State police highway patrolmen have been diverted to answer emergency calls.
Jessica Campbell, co-director of the progressive Rural Organizing Project, says that this has led to unacceptable outcomes, particularly for local women. In particular, she says it has made women more vulnerable to domestic violence, with perpetrators knowing that night-time 911 calls will be unlikely to get a response.
In 2012, a woman was raped in her home in Josephine County after she called 911, and was told no officers were available to help her. At the time, the county sherriff admitted that he did not have the resources to collate crime statistics.
While Rice plays down the issue of violent crime, Campbell says his position depends on “a whole lot of privilege”. Efforts to raise special levies for public safety have repeatedly failed at the ballot box, scuppered in part by anti-tax campaigns.
Finally, last March, the county declared a “public safety fiscal emergency”, starting the path to emergency state funding. For Rice, this is not only an unforgivable renunciation of county sovereignty, but “a perpetual marketing thing” that the county commissioners employ in order to claim more money.
He advocates beefed-up neighbourhood watch programmes and “resident deputies” – community members who would take policing into their own hands. In effect, self-organized, patriot-style organisation would fill the void left by permanently weakened county institutions.
In addition, he offers the economic panacea of reopening federal lands to extractive industries. It’s a message with undeniable appeal in parts of the country that feel abandoned, economically and politically.
Like Trump, the Patriot Movement’s surge is due in part to fear, pain and the perceived indifference of both economic winners and political leaders to the fate of communities that have never recovered from the 2008 crash. In places that need radical solutions, the only radical proposals they are hearing come from the right.
It remains to be seen whether this will translate into big successes on 17 May. Either way, until significant efforts are made to repair the wreckage in rural America, the patriot movement will continue to find an audience.
British Hacker Wins Court Battle Over Encryption Keys
May 10 2016
by Ryan Gallagher
The Intercept
A British court on Tuesday rejected an attempt by security agents to force an alleged hacker to hand over his encryption keys.
Thirty-one-year-old Lauri Love has been accused by U.S. authorities of hacking into U.S. government networks between 2012 and 2013, including those of the Department of Defense, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, and NASA.
In October 2013, the U.K.’s equivalent of the FBI, the National Crime Agency, raided Love’s home and seized his computers and hard drives. But some of the devices contained encrypted data, meaning the agency could not access it.
Initially the British authorities served Love with an order under Section 49 of the U.K’s controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which demanded that he hand over his passwords to open encrypted files stored on the devices. He declined to comply, and the National Crime Agency did not push the issue; Love was not charged with an offense under any British laws.
However, when Love recently launched a civil case seeking the return of his computers and storage devices, the agency renewed its encryption demand, and attempted to turn the civil proceedings around on him by using them as new means to get a judge to order Love to disclose his passwords and encryption keys. Investigators refused to return Love’s computers and hard drives on the basis that they claimed the devices could contain data that he did not have legitimate “ownership” of – for instance, hacked files. The authorities stated that if Love wanted to get his devices back, he would have to first turn over his passwords and show what was contained on them.
As The Intercept previously reported, civil liberties campaigners were alarmed by this development, because it seemed to be an effort to bypass the normal procedure under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which includes safeguards against abuse. The campaigners feared that, if successful, the case would set a new precedent that could have had implications for journalists, activists, and others who need to guard confidential information, potentially making it easier in the future for British police and security agencies to gain access to, or to seize and retain, encrypted material.
On Tuesday, at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London, Judge Nina Tempia ruled in Love’s favor. Tempia said that she was “not persuaded” by the National Crime Agency’s argument that Love should be compelled to disclose his passwords and encryption keys to prove his ownership of the data. She also took a swipe at the agency’s attempt to “circumvent” the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which she described as the “specific legislation that has been passed in order to deal with the disclosure sought.”
Karen Todner, Love’s attorney, welcomed the decision. “The case raised important issues of principle in relation to the right to respect for private life and right to enjoyment of property and the use of the Court’s case management powers,” Todner said in a statement. A ruling in the authorities’ “favor would have set a worrying precedent for future investigations of this nature and the protection of these important human rights.”
A spokeswoman for the National Crime Agency declined to comment, citing an ongoing investigation and judicial proceedings.
It has not yet been determined whether Love will be able to get his seized devices back. The next hearing in his civil case has been set for July. Moreover, the U.S. Justice Department is still seeking Love’s extradition on hacking charges.
Love, who has been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, argues that he would not get a fair trial in the U.S., where his legal team says he could face a sentence of up to 99 years in prison. He has vowed to fight the extradition and says, whatever happens, he won’t give up his encryption keys. “There will be no decryption,” he declared Tuesday, standing outside the courtroom following the judgment.
“If they’d ruled in the other way it would have been very concerning for anyone who has to store sensitive information, especially people with obligations to clients, people under their care in terms of their confidentiality,” he said.
Love, who turned up late for the hearing wearing a black suit jacket, white shirt and sneakers, was pleased with the outcome. “It’s a victory,” he said, “it’s an avoidance of a disaster.”