Free Republic

An American cyberattack on North Korea half a decade ago was fruitless overall, sources say. The National Security Agency (NSA) led a mission in 2010 to damage North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, Reuters reported on Friday. Operatives tried using a variant of the Stuxnet computer virus deployed against Iran that same year, the news service said, with developers crafting a version that would activate once it reached Korean-language settings on targeted machines. Operatives hoped the virus would disable centrifuges for enriching uranium, much like it had when used against Iran, Reuters said, but the cyberattack stumbled when it encountered North...

For the first time, Russia, which is in the midst of a major strategic nuclear modernization, has more deployed nuclear warheads than the United States, according to the latest numbers released by the State Department. Russia now has 1,643 warheads deployed on intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and heavy bombers. The United States has 1,642, said the fact sheet released Wednesday.

.... Several U.S. officials briefed on the options told me they include declaring a “no first use” policy for the United States’ nuclear arsenal, which would be a landmark change in the country’s nuclear posture. Another option under consideration is seeking a U.N. Security Council resolution affirming a ban on the testing of nuclear weapons. This would be a way to enshrine the United States’ pledge not to test without having to seek unlikely Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The administration is also considering offering Russia a five-year extension of the New START treaty’s limits on deployed...

Well, perhaps the better question is should he? The media rumor mill is buzzing after suggestions that the President Elect is considering cutting a deal with Vladimir Putin which could involve the easing or lifting of sanctions in exchange for a dramatic reduction in nuclear weapons stockpiles. We should include the usual caveat that even though he mentioned it to a reporter as a possibility, nothing is official until we see it on Trump’s Twitter feed, but it’s clearly worth an early look. (Reuters) President-elect Donald Trump will propose offering to end sanctions imposed on Russia for its annexation...

The Obama administration has paid Iran more than $10 billion in gold, cash, and other assets since 2013, according to Iranian officials, who disclosed that the White House has been intentionally deflating the total amount paid to the Islamic Republic. Senior Iranian officials late last week confirmed reports that the total amount of money paid to Iran over the past four years is in excess of $10 billion, a figure that runs counter to official estimates provided by the White House. The latest disclosure by Iran, which comports with previous claims about the Obama administration obfuscating details about its cash...

In what amounts to an 11th hour "gift" by the outgoing Obama administration to Tehran's leadership to keep the country, which on Sunday was involved in yet another shooting incident with a US destroyer, content and compliant with Obama's landmark "Nuclear deal", the AP reported that Iran is to receive a huge shipment of natural uranium from Russia to compensate it for exporting tons of reactor coolant. The move was approved by the outgoing U.S. administration and other governments "seeking to keep Tehran committed to a landmark nuclear pact." AP cites two senior diplomats who said that the transfer which...

Lots more nukes? 10 percent tariffs? Remember how the guy operates before you wet yourself Public statements affect different people in different ways. Since the news media think the world revolves around them - since how they react to something is obviously more important than anything else under the sun - they get quite exorcised whenever someone makes a public statement that strikes them as ill-considered. Donald Trump does that a lot. He talks (or more often, tweets) about halting immigration by Muslims. And about imposing tarrifs on foreign goods. This past week, if you listen to the media, Trump...

“The latest UNSC ‘resolution on sanctions’ has created the danger of imminent war on the Korean Peninsula, as there are no judicial and institutional mechanisms to avert a war and armed conflicts and the ‘resolution’ is as good as a declaration of war,” the North Korean foreign ministry said in a statement Thursday, according to Yonhap News Agency. “The U.S. and other countries involved in adopting the ‘resolution on sanctions’ will have to be wholly responsible for the ensuing consequences.” . . . “The DPRK is building the most powerful country in the world on the basis of the self-defensive...

Vladimir Putin has had enough of being accessed of “hacking the US presidential election.” Putin, obviously well-aware of Hillary, Obama, and the Democrats blaming him for the election hacks, has issued a statement to Obama that should quickly send Obama looking for his safe space. Putin, early Friday morning, said that: “The US must either stop accusing Russia of meddling in its elections or prove it. It is indecent of the United States to groundlessly accuse Russia of intervention in its elections.” “You need to either stop talking about it, or finally show some kind of proof. Otherwise it just...

A senior U.S. military official says North Korea now has the capability to launch a nuclear weapon. But the official says that while the U.S. believes Pyongyang can mount a warhead on a missile, it's not clear that it can hit a target.

Click the link. When ABC News questioned the guy in 2012 at the DNC, he threatened to have the reporter arrested. WHY did ABC wait until today to talk about this? You'd think they'd be mad as a wet hen...

A lieutenant commander within Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps is celebrating the 37th anniversary of the U.S. Embassy takeover in Tehran by threatening that if the United States does not keep its end of the nuclear deal, Iran will render the deal void, or “send the deal to (the) Museum,” according to Iranian media sources. "The Iranian nation is bound to its nuclear commitments, but this commitment is not a one-way street," Brigadier General Hossein Salami said at a commemoration of the Embassy takeover and subsequent hostage crisis in Tehran.

Am I right? They Knew this was coming and legitimately feared (and still do) an Obama/Clinton wag the dog shootdown/tactical nuke/torpedoed sub/etc. to cover this up to deflect Trump's real existential threat to Obama/Clinton Crime Syndicate.

If you want World War III, then Hillary Clinton is your candidate. Donald Trump told Reuters that in an exclusive interview.

State Department spokesman John Kirby defended his boss, Secretary of State John Kerry, on Monday for accepting an award for his role in negotiating the Iran nuclear deal along with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. Kirby and Zarif were given the annual Chatham House Prize for finalizing the agreement in July 2015 and working to implement it in January 2016. Critics of the deal in the United States say that it does not do enough to curb Iran’s nuclear capabilities and gives the Islamic Republic too much sanctions relief without addressing the country’s malign activities in the Middle East.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Ash Carter warned Wednesday that any attack on American allies or use of nuclear weapons by North Korea would be met with an "overwhelming" U.S. response. He was speaking at the start of talks between the top U.S. and South Korea diplomats and defense officials to discuss their response to the growing threat from North Korea's nuclear and missile programs. The meeting comes weeks after the North's most powerful nuclear test explosion to date, and days after its failed test launch of a ballistic missile.

As the U.S. elections draw nearer, the amount of bellicose rhetoric from politicians and key military commanders (in truth, “politicians” as well) has been increasing. The main focus of that rhetoric has been directed toward Russia, and is also “blathered” in the direction of China, North Korea, and Iran when it suits U.S. political interests. The problem is that all of it is not just talk: action has been taken, especially regarding Russia and the Syrian theatre of operations. Within the past several weeks, the U.S. has bombed Syrian troops, killing 62 outside of Deor ez-Zor in airstrikes and then...

The tests in the Nevada desert come as tensions rise with Russia and the Pentagon seeks to replace its aging nuclear arsenal. A pair of U.S. Air Force B-2 bombers dropped two 700-pound faux nuclear bombs in the middle of the Nevada desert within the past few days. Now the Pentagon wants to tell you about it.Conducted “earlier this month,” according to an Oct. 6 press release, the test involved two dummy variants of the B61, a nuclear bomb that has been in the U.S. arsenal since the 1960s. One was an “earth penetrator” made to strike underground targets, the other...

Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney reviewed the national security segments of Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate on Wednesday morning’s Breitbart News Daily with SiriusXM host Alex Marlow. Marlow kicked off the discussion with “this insane notion that Iran has abandoned its nuclear armaments, the pursuit of a nuclear weapon, and Hillary Clinton did that single-handedly, without firing a shot.” “Well, it’s fraud, is what it is,” Gaffney said. “This is Obama bomb fraud, now under new management.”

Treason. This is what it looks like. The Obama administration agreed to back the lifting of United Nations sanctions on two Iranian state banks blacklisted for financing Iran’s ballistic-missile program on the same day in January that Tehran released four American citizens from prison, according to U.S. officials and congressional staff briefed on the deliberations. The U.N. sanctions on the two banks weren’t initially to be lifted until 2023, under a landmark nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers that went into effect on Jan. 16. But Obama is now more pro-terror than the UN.