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The U.S. military will move forward "very quickly" with plans to distribute weapons and ammunition to Kurdish YPG fighters battling the Islamic State in Syria despite opposition from NATO ally Turkey, a Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday. "We've got a certain amount of supply in the country already that was used to equip the Syrian Arab Coalition and some of that may be distributed very quickly," Air Force Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S.-led campaign against ISIS, told Pentagon reporters. Dorrian said he did not have an exact timeline detailing when the Kurdish fighters would receive...

<p>US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said on Monday the United States would closely examine proposed de-escalation zones aimed at easing Syria’s civil war but warned “the devil’s in the details” and that much needed to be worked out.</p> <p>The deal to create “de-escalation” zones in the major areas of conflict in western Syria took effect on Saturday.</p>

Defense Secretary James Mattis now has more flexibility in the ongoing fight against the Islamic State after the White House granted the Pentagon new authorities to determine the number of U.S. troops deployed to Iraq and Syria. President Donald Trump on April 20 gave Mattis the authority to set the Force Management Level, or FML, the maximum number of forces deployed to a conflict, in both Middle Eastern countries, BuzzFeed News reported Wednesday. Pentagon chief spokeswoman Dana White confirmed the move to BuzzFeed but said no changes to troop levels or strategy have been made in the fight against ISIS....

The White House is giving the Pentagon greater flexibility to determine the number of U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria, in another move by President Trump to shift greater power to his military leaders. The decision will give Defense Secretary Jim Mattis the authority to send more forces into Syria, to assist U.S.-backed local troops as they move to retake Raqqa from the Islamic State group, which has used the city as a de facto capital. It will also let him adjust the force numbers in Iraq, in the ongoing fight to oust ISIS from Mosul and stabilize it as...

Dear General Mattis, I know you’ve been busy sir. Across the globe, our enemies are stacking up against us. The Pentagon is the virtual three alarm fire brigade, attempting to put out every conflagration caused by the Obama administration’s disastrous national security policies. Eight years of worthless, feckless US leadership and budget cuts have severely weakened the US armed forces. While in our history, the US military has been gutted by Congress, then rebuilt, to fight another day, the military has never been a vast social experiment as it is now. This is something that apparently you have not focused...

The US military that won Desert Storm or Gulf War I in 1991 was a spectacular military, a gargantuan industrial age military with high tech weaponry and well trained personnel, that when called upon, achieved victory with the speed of Patton and the elan of Teddy Roosevelt. Overlooking the vast eight mile carnage on the Highway of Death in Kuwait, destruction that was caused by a US Air Force and Navy that bore almost no resemblance to the two services now, a sergeant in the 7th US Cavalry remarked, “America sure got its money’s worth from those Joes.” In 44...

U.S. President Donald Trump and his military team are aware of North Korea's missile launch, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in a statement on Saturday.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis will visit Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, Qatar and Djibouti starting on Tuesday, the Pentagon said in a statement on Friday. It said Mattis would "reaffirm key U.S. military alliances," and "discuss cooperative effort to counter destabilizing activities and defeat extremist terror organizations."

... After USA dropped the GBU-43 bomb on Afghanistan, it’s been reported that at least 36 terrorists from ISIS have been killed. ... The GBU-43 is a large-yield conventional (non-nuclear) bomb developed by the United States and having a kill radius of 1.6 km. It weighs a massive 21,600-pound, and is GPS-guided. The bomb is designed to be delivered by a C-130 Hercules. The first testing of the GBU-43 was carried out on 11 March 2003 at the Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. It was again tested on 21 November 2003. ...

The U.S. is ready to use conventional weapons in a preemptive strike should the Trump administration believe North Korea will follow through with a nuclear weapons test this weekend, American intelligence officials said Thursday. "It's high stakes," a top official told NBC News. "We are trying to communicate our level of concern and the existence of many military options to dissuade the North first. "It's a feat that we've never achieved before, but there is a new sense of resolve here," the official said. The Pentagon declined to comment, saying, as a policy, it does not discuss future operations "nor...

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Tensions between the United States and Russia will not "spiral out of control" following last week's U.S. cruise missile strikes on a Syrian air base, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Tuesday, describing it as a one-off response to Syria's use of banned chemical weapons. At the same time, he acknowledged that Trump had only authorized the single attack, meaning the U.S. military would not automatically have the authority to strike again should Washington determine another case of chemical weapons use. Mattis also sought to downplay concerns about Pentagon mission creep, saying the U.S. military's focus in Syria was still...

Defense Secretary James Mattis said on Monday that the US cruise-missile strike against a Syrian air base destroyed 20 percent of the military’s aircraft. “The assessment of the Department of Defense is that the strike resulted in the damage or destruction of fuel and ammunition sites, air defense capabilities, and 20 percent of Syria’s operational aircraft,” Mattis said in a statement. “The Syrian government has lost the ability to refuel or rearm aircraft at Shayrat airfield and at this point, use of the runway is of idle military interest,” Mattis said in the statement. He ended with a threat directed...

Defense Secretary James Mattis’ unconventional choices for top Pentagon posts and his reluctance to aggressively push for dramatic increases in the defense budget have rankled Republicans on Capitol Hill who say he’s burning through political capital he needs as he begins reshaping the Pentagon. (Snip) But Republican lawmakers and senior congressional aides said in recent interviews they’re running out of patience with Mattis' staffing decisions, which have disappointed Republican members of the Senate Armed Services Committee hoping to see their ideological allies elevated to senior levels in the Defense Department. Others are grumbling about Mattis’ refusal to advocate a bigger...

Defense Secretary Gen. James Mattis wants to nominate a senior fellow at a Soros-funded think tank as undersecretary at the Pentagon, as the embattled Cabinet official continues to clash with the White House over prospective nominees. Politico reports that Mattis wants Rudy deLeon — a senior fellow at the far-left Center for American Progress (CAP) — to come on board as undersecretary for personnel and readiness. DeLeon previously served in the Clinton administration as deputy secretary of defense. During that time, Gen. Mattis served as his senior military assistant. DeLeon worked for Boeing as senior vice president from 2001 to...

Mattis also said “[c]limate change is impacting stability in areas of the world where our troops are operating today.” “It is appropriate for the Combatant Commands to incorporate drivers of instability that impact the security environment in their areas into their planning,” he said. Mattis’s remarks reflect the thinking of the Pentagon for at least a decade, so they should come as no surprise. Mattis never assigns blame for climate change to humans or nature, nor does he call for the abandonment of carbon dioxide-emitting fuels. That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement of the “97 percent” consensus we often hear...

Secretary of Defense James Mattis has asserted that climate change is real, and a threat to American interests abroad and the Pentagon’s assets everywhere, a position that appears at odds with the views of the president who appointed him and many in the administration in which he serves. In unpublished written testimony provided to the Senate Armed Services Committee after his confirmation hearing in January, Mattis said it was incumbent on the U.S. military to consider how changes like open-water routes in the thawing Arctic and drought in global trouble spots can pose challenges for troops and defense planners. He...

In a clash with President Trump's environmental team, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has declared that climate change is a threat to national security and one military planners must consider in drawing up strategies. According to a report from ProPublica, Mattis told Democratic senators that climate change is real and "can be a driver of instability." His position, at odds with President Trump and his Environmental Protection Agency chief, came in answers to questions from senators following his confirmation hearing. They were released to ProPublica which reached out to the White House and Pentagon for comment without success. _____________________________________________ Andy Revkin...

The Air Force has lost the Right Stuff. The Air Force has lost the warrior spirit, that indefinable quality that enables men who are terrified to do the impossible and to win wars. The Air Force is turning into a politically correct encounter group in matching clothes with weapons. President Trump may be in the White House and General Mattis may be the Secretary of Defense, but the leftist acolytes of the Kenyan commander in chief’s Maoist Revolution are continuing to infest and destroy the armed forces like a stage four cancer. Last week, Fox News broke the story concerning...

<p>Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has withdrawn retired senior diplomat Anne W. Patterson as his choice for undersecretary for policy after the White House indicated unwillingness to fight what it said would be a battle for Senate confirmation.</p> <p>U.S. officials said that two members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), were strongly opposed to Patterson’s nomination because she served as U.S. ambassador to Egypt from 2011 to 2013, a time when the Obama administration supported an elected government with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood that was ultimately overthrown by the Egyptian military.</p>