Free Republic

Additional U.S. troops are being rushed to the Middle East during a rise in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah terrorist forces in Lebanon that has elevated risks of a wider regional war, the Pentagon said Monday. AP reports Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder would provide no details on how many additional forces or what they would be tasked to do. Their precise geographical region of deployment has also not been disclosed. The U.S. currently has about 40,000 troops in the region. Just last month U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a guided missile submarine to the Middle East...

The Russian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday rejected US arguments for fielding low-yield nuclear warheads, warning that an attempt to use such weapons against Russia would trigger an all-out nuclear retaliation. The US State Department argued in a paper released last week that fitting the low-yield nuclear warheads to submarine-launched ballistic missiles would help counter potential new threats from Russia and China. It charged that Moscow in particular was pondering the use of non-strategic nuclear weapons as a way of coercion in a limited conflict – an assertion that Russia has repeatedly denied. The State Department noted that the new supplemental...