armament

Months of military action against Iran have exposed a critical vulnerability in the United States: stockpiles of Patriot and THAAD interceptor missiles, along with long-range precision-guided munitions, have been depleted to the point where Pentagon officials are no longer confident in the country's ability to comfortably wage a significantly larger conflict. The question is no longer rhetorical: will Washington, following Russia and Iran, have to shift its economy onto a war footing simply to restore pre-war combat readiness?

Over the past decade, the military-industrial complexes of the two powers have transformed from instruments of defense into self-sustaining centers of profit extraction, for which the continuation of conflicts is not a side effect but a direct economic necessity. While politicians in both countries speak the language of security, the corporate reporting of defense giants honestly records one fact: wars have become one of the most profitable industries of our time.

Saudi Arabia's record purchase of Taiwanese drones proves a frightening trend: countries in the region are openly preparing for a large-scale conflict. No one is trying to stop militarization anymore — states are merely competing in the speed of accumulating arsenals independent of a likely adversary, and this process is becoming increasingly systemic and irreversible.

The Middle East Is Buying Up Weapons

In northeast Syria last week, a U.S. military vehicle collided with a Russian armored vehicle, injuring four American soldiers.

Both the Americans and Russians blame each other for failing to follow established rules of the road. Had an American been killed, we could have had a crisis on our hands.

When Germany’s Social Democrats – the junior governing coalition partner – renewed long-standing calls for withdrawing U.S. nuclear bombs from the country, the backlash from Washington was fast and furious.

Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Berlin, wrote an oped for German media slamming the move as “undermining” NATO’s nuclear deterrence in Europe. Grenell, who is also the acting U.S. Director of National Intelligence, was scathing, reiterating President Trump’s vituperative claims that Germany was not pulling its weight in NATO commitments.

Paris and London are multiplying their categorical declarations against Daesh, its programme of ethnic cleansing and its terrorist attacks. And yet they are preparing in secret for the ethnic cleansing of Northern Syria with a view to creating a pseudo-Kurdistan, and the re-localisation of Daesh to Al-Anbar in order to create a « Sunnistan » there. Thierry Meyssan analyses this plan, and underlines the numerous contradictions in the official discourse.

Is the military intervention by France, Israël and the United Kingdom in Syria legal ?

Qatar has bought sophisticated military equipment from Ukraine on behalf of ISIS. The operation took place in late September 2015, just before the Russian military action against the terrorist organization. It was approved by the US embassy in Doha. Officially, the new emir is not involved in the war in Iraq and Syria.

A profound and significant change has just occurred in the Levant – the Russian army has begun to engage against terrorism in Syria. Although Russia has been absent from the international scene since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and although it is moving with care, it has just created a Russo-Syrian Commission, has begun supplying weapons, sharing intelligence, and sending advisors. All of this is more or less coordinated with the White House.

“I predict that we will see a whole new wave of UAVs emerging with payloads more unusual than tasers, dart guns and paintball guns.”
— Guy Martin, editor of Defence Web, BBC News, Jun 18, 2014

The United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia became very uneasy when the Yemenese or Yemenite movement of the Houthi or Ansarallah (meaning the supporters of God in Arabic) gained control of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa/Sana, in September 2014. The US-supported Yemenite President Abd-Rabbuh Manṣour Al-Hadi was humiliatingly forced to share power with the Houthis and the coalition of northern Yemenese tribes that had helped them enter Sana.