Important Takeaways:
- U.K. Govt Warns: Be Ready for War with China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea in Five Years
- Speaking at Lancaster House on Monday, British Minister of Defense Grant Shapps said the West is facing a “much more troubled world” and could no longer consider itself post-war, with considerable new investment in military spending needed. He said:
- …now is the time for all allies and democratic nations across the world to… make sure their defense spending is growing too. Because as discussed, the era of the peace dividend is over. In five years time we could be looking at multiple theatres including Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.
- …we find ourselves at the dawn of this new era. [The] Berlin Wall a distant memory but we have come full circle, moving from a post-war to a pre-war world. An age of idealism has been replaced by a period of hard-headed realism.
- Illustrating actions taken by Britain to prepare itself for this multifaceted conflict the British government apparently believes is coming, Shapps cited the UK’s support to Ukraine, the country leading the largest NATO deployment since the end of the Cold War this year, the signing of a new UK-Japan-Italy fighter coalition, and the creation of the Australia-UK-U.S. submarine coalition. He said the government was moving to putting 2.5 per cent of GDP into defense spending as soon as it could afford to.
- Estonia, one of Ukraine’s most enthusiastic allies and a state which has a land border with Russia said through their Prime Minister on Monday that their intelligence states NATO has “three to five years” to prepare for a Russian attack on NATO itself.
- Sweden warned its citizens last week to be prepared for war.
- Germany is reportedly of the same mind, with the best-selling newspaper in Europe Bild splashing this week on leaked war plans anticipating Russian invasions of European states by the summer of 2025.
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Important Takeaways:
- Joe Biden ‘is struggling to keep his head above water’ as US is challenged by Iran and Russia – ‘and China and North Korea are taking notes’, experts say as they warn inaction now ‘will cost American lives later’
- Joe Biden ‘is struggling to keep his head above water’ as the US ‘ignores’ threats from Iran and continues to be challenged by Russia – while North Korea and China are ‘taking notes’, experts have warned.
- Iran’s Revolutionary Guards confirmed yesterday that their forces launched ballistic missiles close to the US consulate in Erbil, northern Iraq – a move condemned as ‘reckless’ by the US State Department.
- Former military intelligence officer Colonel (Ret) Jonathan Sweet and foreign policy expert Mark Toth labelled the US response ‘as perfunctory as it was lacking’, saying it is just the latest example of the Biden administration’s inaction in the region.
- Iran’s so-called ‘Axis of Resistance’ – including Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels – has been increasing its attacks on Israel and commercial shipping routes, prompting the US and UK to launch devastating strikes by air and sea.
- But the experts told MailOnline: ‘For all the US military might put on display throughout the Middle East, Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden right now, Iran and their proxies have not been deterred.’
- Meanwhile, as the war in Ukraine approaches its third year, Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric has become more aggressive, threatening Ukraine’s statehood and warning that Russia would ‘never’ abandon the gains it has made.
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Important Takeaways:
- World War 3 fears as Xi Jinping ‘purges China’s military and brings in generals willing to go to war in move that could lead to Taiwan invasion and drag US into global conflict’
- Xi Jingping is purging China’s military and bringing in generals willing to go to war in a move that could lead to an invasion of Taiwan and drag the Unites States into World War Three, military analysts have said.
- The Chinese leader, seen by many as a dictator, is ‘trying to gain control of the military,’ Gordon Chang told Business Insider, adding: ‘I think that he is thinking that he needs officers who are prepared to actually fight.’
- According to Chang, author of ‘China Is Going to War’, Xi feels ‘that many of China’s general officers don’t want to fight.’ As a result, he said, the Chinese premier sees ‘a force led by an officer corps that is ambivalent about going to war.’
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Important Takeaways:
- China purges top army brass after US intel revealed they’d filled missiles with WATER instead of fuel and had a huge silo bunker with the wrong lids due to military corruption
- The news comes days after a startling New Year’s message from ruler Xi Jingping, who warned that ‘all Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait’ will be ‘reunified.’
- The communist country’s top lawmakers ousted nine senior military officers from the national legislative body on Friday, state media reported, a step that typically precedes further punishment.
- Many of those removed were from the Rocket Force – a key arm of the Chinese army overseeing tactical and nuclear missiles.
- Now, American intelligence claims military corruption led to the mistakes, which also included fields of silos in Western China fitted with lids that stopped the missiles from launching.
- Since Xi took power in 2012, he has embarked on a wide-ranging anti-corruption crackdown among Communist Party and government officials, with the army being one of its main targets.
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Important Takeaways:
- Taiwan sends air raid alert to mobile phones across the island after China launches satellite over its airspace amid mounting tensions between Taipei and Beijing
- The presidential alert was sent out to residents’ mobile phones, warning them of a missile flyover and to ‘please beware of your safety’.
- The air raid alert came just minutes after China said it had successfully launched an Einstein Probe satellite from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in southwestern Sichuan province.
- State broadcaster CCTV said it was launched ‘using the Long March-2C carrier rocket… and the satellite entered its designated orbit’.
- China had not previously announced the satellite launch and did not offer any details on its flight plan.
- The alert on Tuesday comes just days before Taiwan has presidential and parliamentary elections on Saturday, which China has described as a choice between war and peace.
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Important Takeaways:
- Chinese Spy Balloons Spotted Over Taiwan Ahead of Critical Elections
- Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense has reported that four Chinese spy balloons were detected floating over the island nation this week. The first was identified Monday, with three more spotted flying over the island on Tuesday. Chinese spy balloons have previously been detected flying near Taiwan, but this is the first time officials have reported such balloons crossing directly over the island nation.
- According to ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Sun Li-fang, the balloons appeared to be the kind designed to collect atmospheric data. “As for whether they have other purposes,” he said, the government “is closely monitoring and controlling the situation, taking appropriate measures, and summarizing their flight paths for judgment and analysis.”
- A similar balloon was found floating over the U.S. in January last year and was eventually shot down. Despite Beijing’s claims that it was merely a weather balloon that had drifted off course, an analysis of the debris by U.S. government agencies found that the balloon carried specialized equipment used to collect photos and videos, as well as other kinds of data.
- The appearance of the Chinese balloons over Taiwan comes as the country is preparing for a three-way presidential election on January 13, in which both opposition candidates have expressed a desire to take a more friendly approach to China than the current ruling Party.
- The appearance of the Chinese spy balloons over Taiwan comes barely a week after former U.S. Navy Seal Erik Prince predicted that China will invade Taiwan during the spring of this year.
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Important Takeaways:
- It is time for all member nations of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Argentina, Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) to drop the United States dollar in favor of local currencies for financial relations and settlements, according to Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov this week, at the Russia-China Financial Dialogue forum in Beijing.
- “We need to further develop financial cooperation within the BRICS countries,” Siluanov added. “Here we see opportunities … to develop a payments system that would be independent of the infrastructure, which does not always fully fulfill the goals of individual countries.”
- “Therefore, the sustainable development of financial relations and settlements on the BRICS platform is important for us, and we believe that it is necessary to work out such issues, and today we will consider a number of them.”
- Many BRICS partners are already making trades with local or alternative currencies after sanctions stemming from the war in Ukraine effectively cut Moscow off from the Western financial system.
- Rather than kowtow to Western demands, Russia and its partners have instead been laying the groundwork for a new world order that will eventually cut off the West from global trade after the U.S. has been unseated as the global economic superpower.
- Communist China is quickly rising to the top of the trade heap with all of its cheaply made junk, and Russia is helping it and the other BRICS member nations further dethrone the U.S. by encouraging financial transactions in other currencies.
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Important Takeaways:
- China urges regional alert as US military steps up forward deployment
- China’s defense ministry on Thursday urged the Asia-Pacific to be on high alert as the United States steps up forward military deployment in the region, after reports of a U.S. plan to revive a Pacific airfield that launched atomic bombings of Japan.
- The Chinese military is paying close attention to moves by the United States, and will firmly safeguard China’s maritime rights, security and sovereignty in the region, Wu Qian, a spokesperson at the defense ministry, told a regular news conference.
- Earlier in December, a U.S. air force general told Japan’s Nikkei newspaper that the U.S. military will make “significant progress” towards reclaiming the Tinian North airfield from overgrown jungle vegetation in the coming months, as part of a plan to disperse aircraft across the Indo-Pacific region as China’s missile threat grows.
- The airfield, abandoned after World War II, lies on Tinian Island, part of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory, and about 200 kilometers (124 miles) north of Guam.
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Important Takeaways:
- Intelligence officials have revealed a Chinese spy balloon that flew across the US for a week in February used an American internet service provider to communicate.
- The balloon had drifted east and entered US airspace over Alaska on 28 January and was tracked as it flew over Malmstrom Air Force base in Montana, where nuclear assets are stored.
- On 4 February, the Air Force sent an F-22 fighter jet armed with an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile to take the balloon down over water.
- In a new report from NBC, the outlet cited two current and one former U.S. official familiar with the report as its source.
- The report stated that the balloon was connected to a US-based company and communicating with China about its navigation.
- It further stated that the connection ‘allowed the balloon to send burst transmissions or high-bandwidth collections of data over short periods of time’ to its home base in China.
- The channel has not released the name of the company.
- The unidentified internet service provider company has denied all such claims.
- This comes days after it was revealed that officials in the Biden administration had planned to keep the Chinese spy balloon secret, with a top Air Force commander admitting the balloon exposed gaps in their intelligence gathering.
- A source told NBC: ‘Before it was spotted publicly, there was the intention to study it and let it pass over and not ever tell anyone about it.’
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Important Takeaways:
- Xi vows to prevent anyone ‘splitting Taiwan from China’
- President Xi Jinping vowed on Tuesday to resolutely prevent anyone from “splitting Taiwan from China in any way”, the official Xinhua news agency reported, a little more than two weeks before Taiwan elects a new leader.
- China views democratically-governed Taiwan as its own territory, despite the strong objections of the government in Taipei, and has ramped up military and political pressure to assert its sovereignty claims.
- Taiwan holds presidential and parliamentary elections on Jan. 13 and how the island handles relations with China is a major point of contention on the campaign trail.
- Xi said “the complete reunification of the motherland is an irresistible trend”.
- “The motherland must be reunified, and inevitably will be reunified,” Xinhua cited Xi as telling senior officials from the Communist Party.
- China says the Taiwan election is an internal Chinese affair but that the island’s people face a choice between war and peace and any attempt at Taiwan independence means war.
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