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New Cold War: A revised Russian military doctrine identifies NATO as Moscow's No. 1 threat, as the Obama administration announced it was returning control of 15 bases in Europe back to the host governments. Russian President Vladimir Putin gave President Obama a lump of coal in his Christmas stocking in the form of a revised strategic doctrine. It re-emphasizes that NATO, notwithstanding President Obama's "flexibility" and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's "reset" button, is the No. 1 strategic threat facing Russia. We are reminded of Obama's rebuke of Mitt Romney in the third presidential debate, when the GOP nominee...

The State Department’s Under-Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, Rose Gottemoeller, proudly bragged to a Brookings Institution gathering that “our progress toward total nuclear disarmament is now 85% of the way there. If we can maintain the pace, our last nuclear device will be moth-balled before President Obama completes his term.” Gottemoeller asserted that “it is our fervent hope that our example will inspire others to follow suit” and maintained that “a nuclear-free world will be a safer world.” Whether either of these aspirations would bear out is unknown. Prior to the dawn of the nuclear age less potent...

'We Still Have More Work To Do'' The State Department's Rose Gottemoeller, under secretary for arms control and international security, spoke at the Brookings Institution Thursday where she reaffirmed the United States' "unassailable" commitment to putting the nuclear weapons genie back in the bottle. Gottemoeller told the attendees at the Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative-sponsored event that "the U.S. commitment to achieving the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons is unassailable." She went on to note that the nation's stockpile of active weapons is down 85 percent from maximum cold war levels, falling to 4,804 in 2013...

National Security: It won't generate the buzz that torture allegations do, but a provision in the defense spending bill requires the White House to explain why Russia developed a cruise missile in breach of a 1987 treaty. President Ronald Reagan coined the phrase "trust but verify" regarding dealing with the Russians for good reason. American security was to be guaranteed through the strength of our will and the genius of our technology, not through pieces of parchment, handshakes, clinking glasses at conferences, or reset buttons. Enter President Obama and the age of flexibility, back-stabbing our allies on things like missile...

Defense: Members of Congress warn that the State Department is working on arms accords to demilitarize space and ban anti-satellite weapons, leaving Russia and China with a huge lead in military space capabilities. On Jan. 17, 2012, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a statement announcing the Obama administration's intention to work with the European Union on an International Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities. It was supposed to be sort of a "rules of the road" for space-faring nations to deal with issues such as the accumulating space junk jeopardizing satellites and manned space activities such as the...

National Defense: The president launches attacks on the Islamic State with two weapons systems that were targeted for elimination by the administration years before their usefulness ended or any replacements were ready. With the decision to launch air and missile strikes against Islamic State targets in Syria, in addition to ongoing strikes in Iraq in what is said to be the start of a long and sustained campaign to "degrade and destroy" the terrorist group, President Obama has stumbled upon a revelation: The military whose budgets he's slashed and weapons systems he opposed is suddenly quite useful. As the Washington...

Nuclear Threat: Beijing's strategic military buildup continues with the unveiling of a road-mobile missile capable of delivering up to 10 atomic warheads anywhere in America. Time to show some flexibility, Mr. President? While President Obama was playing the back nine, and as it was confirmed that the Russians had developed a cruise missile, the R500, which violates 1987's Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty, the Chinese were busy as well. They now have a mobile intercontinental nuclear missile with no other purpose than to make war against the U.S. The announcement of the DF-41's existence was not exactly approved by the Chinese...

WASHINGTON – The White House says the United States will no longer produce or acquire anti-personnel land mines and plans to join an international treaty banning their use.

The country chose the wrong path when it perceived the serious homicidal violence framework in which it was immersed. Seeking solutions that were far from the real cause of the problem that only intended to transfer the responsibility for it to society. The results were catastrophic. Today the Brazilian killer framework is the worst since it began to be measured almost 35 years ago. The disarmament concept was officially introduced in Brazil in 1997 when the first effectively restrictive gun-bearing law was enacted intended for strict control of legal weapons circulation. A few years later (2003) the law became more...

Liberals can be disarming. In fact, they are for disarming anybody who can be disarmed, whether domestically or internationally. Unfortunately, the people who are the easiest to disarm are the ones who are the most peaceful — and disarming them makes them vulnerable to those who are the least peaceful. We are currently getting a painful demonstration of that in Ukraine. When Ukraine became an independent nation, it gave up all the nuclear missiles that were on its territory from the days when it had been part of the Soviet Union. At that time, Ukraine had the third largest arsenal...

Disarming America: The U.S. has announced plans to place 50 nuclear missiles in storage as part of its commitment to the New START Treaty signed with Russia, ignoring Moscow's violation of another arms treaty. The Pentagon announced Tuesday the United States' Strategic Force Structure designed "to comply with the New START Treaty," as a Defense Department press release notes. It means that 50 Minuteman III missiles — out of a current force of 450 — will be removed from their silos and stored away. The silos will be kept "warm," that is, available for future use and for re-insertion of...

U.S. to trim air, sea and land nuke launchers under U.S.-Russia treaty: officials 11:32am EDT By David Alexander WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will scale back its land, sea and air nuclear missile launchers under a New START treaty with Russia but not retire a ballistic missile squadron as some lawmakers had expected, U.S. officials told Reuters. The U.S. military will disable four missile launch tubes on each of its 14 U.S. nuclear submarines, convert 30 B-52 nuclear bombers to conventional use and empty 50 intercontinental ballistic missile silos, senior administration officials said on condition of anonymity. The plan...

Defense Spending: Two more weapons systems, including the Navy's premier attack missile, have been targeted for elimination by the administration years before their usefulness ends or replacements are ready. How ironic that Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Barack Obama used the Tomahawk missile he now seeks to scrap as his weapon of choice when on March 19, 2011, he launched Operation Odyssey Dawn and fired 112 Tomahawks at Libyan targets to enforce a U.N.-backed no fly-zone in support of Libyan rebels fighting Moammar Gadhafi. Future presidents will not be able to carry such a big stick. Along with the Hellfire air-to-ground...

Phasing out the A-10 attack aircraft could cost Tucson 2,000 jobs — and that’s just one of many changes in store for Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, the proposed 2015 Air Force budget shows. If Congress approves the cuts, D-M would see ongoing — though, in some cases, diminished — missions including electronic warfare and unmanned aircraft operations. Among the proposed changes: •Most significantly, the base would lose its entire fleet of 83 A-10 Thunderbolt IIs by the 2019 fiscal year. •It also would lose seven EC-130H Compass Call electronic warfare planes by fiscal 2016. The base now operates 15 Compass...

Bullet points: Obama traveled to Ukraine with Sen. Dick Lugar in 2005 just seven months after he became a senator, touring surplus weapons stockpiles Most of the small arms and ammunition were left over when Soviets withdrew from Eastern bloc nations, and later dumped in Ukraine The two senators secured U.S. funding to help destroy the weapons instead of leaving them intact Ukraine exported more than 700,000 small arms in 2004-2007, including 101,000 each to Libya and the UK, and 260,000 to the U.S. But most of the ammunition stockpiles – crucial for keeping a standing army battle-ready – were...

Arrogance: Mocked by late-night comedians and "experts" alike, Sarah Palin could see from her front porch that candidate Obama's response to Moscow's invasion of Georgia would encourage it also to invade Ukraine. As the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes notes in a tweet, administration officials told CNN's Barbara Starr that the arrival of officers of the 76th Chernihov Storm Troops Division and their dispersal across key choke points in Ukraine, including Crimea, wasn't an "invasion" but an "uncontested arrival." Whatever this Russian version of an "overseas contingency operation" is called, it was foreseen as the inevitable consequence of electing a president...

A donor to a Democratic representative and a number of groups devoted to reducing the U.S. nuclear stockpile received a prestigious White House award for scientific achievement on Monday. Article Link: Donor to Groups Devoted to Reducing U.S. Nuclear Stockpile Receives Scientific Achievement Award | Washington Free Beacon (http://freebeacon.com/donor-to-groups-devoted-to-reducing-u-s-nuclear-stockpile-receives-scientific-achievement-award/)Posted with Article Posting Assistant: (http://code-happy.bahits.com/?p=62)

Defense: Budget cuts, sequestration and indifference to maintaining what was once "the arsenal of democracy" have led to units that are not deployment-ready and soldiers with weapons their grandfathers could have used. The standing ovation given at the State of the Union to Sgt. 1st Class Cory Remsburg, seriously wounded in an Afghan war that his commander in chief did not believe was winnable, was well deserved. It also served as a tribute to all the heroes we send into battle, particularly under rules of engagement that often make the proverbial "one hand tied behind your back" a preferable option....

National Security: While the administration guts the U.S. military, Pentagon experts warn that as soon as five years from now our missile defenses might pose little problem for China's new hypersonic strike vehicle. Behaving as the world power they are becoming, the Chinese are building state-of-the-art hypersonic missiles that Pentagon officials warn could overpower U.S. defenses in five years. As we recently mentioned, China's defense ministry has confirmed the Jan. 9 test of a hypersonic glide vehicle, known as the WU-14. It was designed to evade our missile and other defense systems, such as the Aegis sea-based missile defense guarding...

Power Shift: Despite the White House's much-lauded pivot to the Pacific, the Navy's Pacific commander warns that an increasingly hostile and assertive China threatens U.S. air and sea superiority in the region. If jaws didn't drop, they should have last week when Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III, chief of U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), said: "Our historic dominance that most of us in this room have enjoyed is diminishing, no question." U.S. naval and air superiority, particularly in the Pacific, has been taken for granted. But as Obama administration budget cuts and the effects of sequestration take their toll, our position...