Battle for Aleppo: US-Backed Rebels Shut Off Water for 1.5 Million Civilians

The so-called “moderate” rebels turned off the water to 1.5 million civilians living in West Aleppo in retaliation for a Syrian Army airstrike on East Aleppo that allegedly left 250,000 residents without water setting the stage for an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe.

The city of Aleppo is “dying” according to United Nations officials after a fierce wave of bombing last night by the Syrian Army in an attempt to break the stalemate in what once was the economic capital of the country but is now left to rubble after years of combat between the Assad government and rebels.

Last night’s airstrikes according to early reporting by the United Nations left 115 dead as hostilities have intensified following the collapse of the ceasefire earlier this week resulting in large part from a US-led coalition airstrike on a Syrian Army base in Deir Ez-Zor that left 62 dead and hundreds injured “paving the way” for a major offensive by Daesh (ISIS) terrorists and over 300 ceasefire violations by the rebels.

The rebels signaled in the day before the ceasefire that they would not comply with the agreement brokered by the United States and Russia with the second largest rebel group Ahrar al-Sham even saying that it was “impossible” for the group to breakaway from al-Nusra Front terrorists (formerly Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate prior to a rebranding effort) because the two groups had become too entangled fighting under the common banner of the Army of Conquest.

With hopes for peace on hold Syrian airstrikes have escalated which the rebels claim undermined attempts to repair a water pump supplying rebel-held districts in East Aleppo with water allegedly blocking the flow of the vital resource to some 250,000 residents.

In an act of reprisal, the rebels switched off the Suleiman al-Halabi pumping station that provides water to 1.5 million Syrian civilians in government controlled West Aleppo raising the possibility of an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in what has already turned into the largest displacement of civilians in human history.

Kieran Dwyer, spokesman for the UN Children’s Rights & Emergency Relief Organization (UNICEF) explained that the Bab al-Nairab pumping station supplying rebel-held parts of Aleppo was allegedly damaged on Thursday and subsequent strikes rendered repairs impossible.

“Then in retaliation for that attack a nearby pumping station that pumps water to the entire western part of the city – upwards to 1.5 million people – was deliberately switched off,” said Dwyer.

 UNICEF fears that families in West Aleppo will be forced to use contaminated liquid carrying waterborne diseases to which children are particularly vulnerable as a result of the intentional act of terroristic sabotage by the rebels in contravention of international humanitarian standards.

“Aleppo is slowly dying, and the world is watching, and the water is being cut off and bombed – it’s just the latest act of inhumanity,” said UNICEF Deputy Director Justin Forsyth.

Putin Blasts Western ‘Democratization’ Saying it Causes Terrorism, Failed States

The Russian President leveled his most fierce blow yet against interventionist foreign policies arguing that productive societal change must begin at the ground level from within rather than being imparted by outside liberators.

President Putin opined in an interview with Bloomberg at the Eastern Economic Forum that events from the last decade and a half show that the budding Western foreign policy theory of humanitarian interventionism, wars of liberation and outside efforts to bolster opposition to autocratic conditions result in fertile breeding grounds for terrorists and destabilize nation-states – with Iraq, Libya and Syria being the most prominent and graphic examples.

“I’ve always been of the opinion that you can’t change things from the outside, regarding political regimes, power change,” Putin explained. “I’m sure – and the events of the past decade add to this certainty – in particular the attempts at democratization in Iraq, Libya, we see what they led to: the destruction of state systems and the rise of terrorism.”

The Russian President himself has faced challenges from Western foreign policy thinkers who claim to espouse a theory of outside intervention to facilitate a culture of increased democratization – such as Open Society Foundations’ George Soros who had invested heavily in opposition media and entities inside of Russia which many in Moscow see as a thinly veiled effort to destabilize the government.

A similar cascade befell the regime of Viktor Yanukovych, the democratically elected leader of Ukraine, whose regime was ousted by the same “fifth column” forces of disruption that the leaks of George Soros files showed that the Hungarian-born billionaire advocated for and ultimately funded the creation of.

 “Do you see any elements of democracy in Libya? Perhaps they will develop one day, hopefully. Or the ongoing civil war in Iraq – what is the future of Iraq in General? These remain big questions,” said Putin in laying out his case. “The same goes for Syria. Every time we hear that ‘Assad must go’ (because someone from outside believes so), I can’t help but wonder: What is that going to lead to?… Isn’t it better to warm ourselves with patience and promote structural changes in society?”

The idea comes full-force with the regime change efforts in Iraq and Libya with former President George W. Bush calling the military campaign an effort to “liberate the Iraqi people” from the despotism of the violent dictator Saddam Hussein. A similar motive animated the Obama administration’s push, an effort spearheaded by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to force regime change in Libya so that pro-democratic forces could lead the country – instead it is a failed state controlled by Daesh (ISIS).

Speaking about democracy from the depths of despotism, Putin argued that “this won’t happen today or tomorrow, but perhaps therein lies the political wisdom: holding horses and not leaping ahead, but gradually pursuing structural changes, in this case, in the political system of society.”

The Russian President’s argument makes sense even under Western political theology which is based on the notion of the rule of law and freedom of speech with a major precondition of being trust in institutions that are left stable enough to adapt to the needs and demands of the people.

‘Obama has been too Soft on Putin,’ Said Soros as he Called the Shots on Ukraine

New documents released by hackers who compromised George Soros’ Open Society Foundations raise serious questions about the Hungarian billionaire’s role in Ukraine.

A leaked document, from the massive 2,500 file dump by DC Leaks of George Soros’ most sensitive Open Society Foundations communications, show the inordinate amount of power and authority the Hungarian billionaire wielded over Ukraine in the immediate aftermath of the Maidan government overthrow.

Soros, along with key executives from the Open Society Foundations, held extensive meetings with nearly every actor involved in the Maidan coup including Ukraine’s Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Justice, Health and Education as well as US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt and the regional director of USAID. However, the documents do exclude one key official, Victoria Nuland, who was allegedly involved in steering the opposition to the Yanukovych government.

The records focus on plans to minimize and counter Russian influence and cultural ties to Ukraine with a focus towards steering Kiev towards social and economic reforms that Soros favored. The Hungarian billionaire has not been bashful about his acts or intent to influence politics in Ukraine establishing the NGO, International Renaissance Foundation (IRF) to spearhead the formation of the “New Ukraine.”

Most troubling in the document leak appears to be a file titled “Breakfast with US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt” to discuss Ukraine’s future. In the meeting, which took place on March 31, 2014, just months after the Maidan coup and weeks prior to civil strife following Ukrainian forces assault on Donbass, US Ambassador Pyatt outlines a PR war against Putin, a position George Soros viewed favorably in the meeting.

“The short term issue that needs to be addressed will be the problem in getting the message out from the government through professional PR tools, especially given Putin’s own professional smear campaigns,” said the US Ambassador.

George Soros responded, “Agreement on the strategic communications issue – providing professional PR assistance to the Ukrainian government would be very useful.”

Pyatt seemed open to the idea of guiding Ukraine towards a decentralization of power just short of Lavrov’s recommendation for a federalized Ukraine, but George Soros pushed back stating that a federalization model would result in Russia gaining influence over eastern regions of the country which the Hungarian billionaire disapproved of.

The Ambassador noted that Secretary of State John Kerry “would be interested to hear George Soros’ views on the situation directly, upon return from his trip” raising the question why one wealthy foreign individual, neither from Ukraine nor Russia, had such access to influence American policy.

Ambassador Pyatt’s position towards decentralization also appeared to shake as the correspondence continued saying that the “Russian propaganda machine is telling Karkhiv and Donbass residents that the government in Western Ukraine is looking to take away their resources and rights through the decentralization process, feeding into Lavrov’s line that the Ukrainian government is dysfunctional and not successful as a unitary state, making it a necessity to have federalization.

Then, in a full capitulation, the American diplomat point blank asks George Soros, “what should the US government be doing and what is the US government currently doing.”

To which, George Soros responded, “Obama has been too soft on Putin, and there is a need to impose potent smart sanctions.” He then called on the US government to “impose sanctions on Russia for 90 days or until the Russian government recognizes the results of the presidential elections.”

In a separate meeting, titled “Civil Society Roundtable Meeting,” George Soros directly calls for the formation of a Ukrainian “fifth column” – a group whose sole purpose is to undermine a larger group – in order to push Ukraine away from Russia.

“We would rather have people there as fifth column – pivotal thing for future of Ukrainian society – continue to work with Crimean people” said the document regarding the disputed territory only highlighting that there was potentially improper interference by Soros in Ukraine’s civil society.

Putin and Erdogan Talks: Will Russia-Turkey Reset Spell the End of NATO, EU?

In his first foreign trip after the failed coup attempt in his country, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in St. Petersburg with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in the hopes of mending ties as Ankara is increasingly isolated from the West.

On Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg, Russia, with a public goal of reestablishing between the countries diplomatic and economic relations frayed in the wake of a Russian bomber aircraft shot down along the Turkish-Syrian border. At the time, Russia contended that its bomber was over Syrian airspace, while Turkey claimed the aircraft drifted some meters into Turkish airspace for all of 16 seconds.In the wake of the failed coup attempt against Erdogan, Turkey is now reconsidering that decision, as well as its friends and allies around the world. Erdogan has repeatedly accused the United States, alongside his leading Turkish ministers, of playing an active role in the failed overthrow attempt or sympathizing with coup plotters. The Turkish leader at one point referred to his former ally Fethullah Gulen, now the number one candidate for Erdogan’s ire, as only “a pawn.”

The United States, for its part, provided no warning to the Turkish regime, if it did indeed know prior to events that there was a threat of overthrow, and had been hesitant to provide an endorsement of the Erdogan regime, until it became clear that the government would survive the coup plot.

Turkey has similarly received a cold shoulder from European Union member states, who refuse to consider fast-tracking Ankara’s accession into the EU or providing visa-free travel to its citizens, citing what they view as the Erdogan regime’s human rights violations in the post-coup attempt purge that has led to the arrest of some 18,000 soldiers and judges and the firing of nearly 100,000 people for purportedly sympathizing with the coup from all sectors of civil service.

Scorned by those he once considered his closest foreign allies, facing growing hostility from neighboring states for supporting the US-led effort against Assad in Syria, and dealing with the difficult aftermath of conducting society after an attempted government overthrow, Erdogan now looks to Russian President Vladimir Putin as perhaps his last resort.

On Monday, Loud & Clear’s Brian Becker sat down with security analyst Mark Sleboda to discuss the implications of the thaw in relations between Turkey and Russia, as well as what can be expected from a meeting between Putin and Erdogan.

https://www.spreaker.com/embed/player/standard?episode_id=9150539&autoplay=false

“Well, it would be false to say that it is without significance, but I think that the press in both Turkey and Russia, and to some extent the West, are blowing this out of proportion,” said Sleboda. “I think that the best that can be expected, not only out of this meeting, because this is only the beginning of a process, would be the restoration of ties between the two countries — something approximate to what it was before last November, when Turkey shot down a Russian plane along the Syrian-Turkish border, but not quite to that same level.”

Does Putin have the upper-hand as Erdogan has become scorned by the West?

“It has to be remembered that for a long time now, and particularly in the beginning years of Erdogan’s regime in Turkey, Ankara has had a policy of no problems with their neighbors, peace abroad and peace at home was their mantra,” said Sleboda. “However, as a result of Turkey siding with the US, Saudi Arabia, and the EU in the attempt to overthrow the Syrian government with this proxy war, they have managed to alienate everyone, all of their neighbors, their partners in NATO, the EU, and Russia, who was an important economic partner.”

“Erdogan was already seeking to improve relations with Russia before the coup took place, as well as Israel and Egypt. But there can be no doubt that after the coup these plans were vastly accelerated.”

“I don’t think the West had a direct hand in orchestrating it, as Erdogan himself and members of his party have put out or insinuated, not very subtly, but I believe the West knew about it, and while it was going on they stood back and didn’t provide the assistance to a NATO member, as they have done in previous coups of Turkey,” said Sleboda. “They stood back to see what would happen before they very belatedly announced their support for Erdogan’s government.”

“Erdogan finds himself in a much tighter place now.”

Putin and Erdogan Talks: Will Russia-Turkey Reset Spell the End of NATO, EU?

In his first foreign trip after the failed coup attempt in his country, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in St. Petersburg with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in the hopes of mending ties as Ankara is increasingly isolated from the West.

On Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg, Russia, with a public goal of reestablishing between the countries diplomatic and economic relations frayed in the wake of a Russian bomber aircraft shot down along the Turkish-Syrian border. At the time, Russia contended that its bomber was over Syrian airspace, while Turkey claimed the aircraft drifted some meters into Turkish airspace for all of 16 seconds.In the wake of the failed coup attempt against Erdogan, Turkey is now reconsidering that decision, as well as its friends and allies around the world. Erdogan has repeatedly accused the United States, alongside his leading Turkish ministers, of playing an active role in the failed overthrow attempt or sympathizing with coup plotters. The Turkish leader at one point referred to his former ally Fethullah Gulen, now the number one candidate for Erdogan’s ire, as only “a pawn.”

The United States, for its part, provided no warning to the Turkish regime, if it did indeed know prior to events that there was a threat of overthrow, and had been hesitant to provide an endorsement of the Erdogan regime, until it became clear that the government would survive the coup plot.

Turkey has similarly received a cold shoulder from European Union member states, who refuse to consider fast-tracking Ankara’s accession into the EU or providing visa-free travel to its citizens, citing what they view as the Erdogan regime’s human rights violations in the post-coup attempt purge that has led to the arrest of some 18,000 soldiers and judges and the firing of nearly 100,000 people for purportedly sympathizing with the coup from all sectors of civil service.

Scorned by those he once considered his closest foreign allies, facing growing hostility from neighboring states for supporting the US-led effort against Assad in Syria, and dealing with the difficult aftermath of conducting society after an attempted government overthrow, Erdogan now looks to Russian President Vladimir Putin as perhaps his last resort.

On Monday, Loud & Clear’s Brian Becker sat down with security analyst Mark Sleboda to discuss the implications of the thaw in relations between Turkey and Russia, as well as what can be expected from a meeting between Putin and Erdogan.

https://www.spreaker.com/embed/player/standard?episode_id=9150539&autoplay=false

“Well, it would be false to say that it is without significance, but I think that the press in both Turkey and Russia, and to some extent the West, are blowing this out of proportion,” said Sleboda. “I think that the best that can be expected, not only out of this meeting, because this is only the beginning of a process, would be the restoration of ties between the two countries — something approximate to what it was before last November, when Turkey shot down a Russian plane along the Syrian-Turkish border, but not quite to that same level.”

Does Putin have the upper-hand as Erdogan has become scorned by the West?

“It has to be remembered that for a long time now, and particularly in the beginning years of Erdogan’s regime in Turkey, Ankara has had a policy of no problems with their neighbors, peace abroad and peace at home was their mantra,” said Sleboda. “However, as a result of Turkey siding with the US, Saudi Arabia, and the EU in the attempt to overthrow the Syrian government with this proxy war, they have managed to alienate everyone, all of their neighbors, their partners in NATO, the EU, and Russia, who was an important economic partner.”

“Erdogan was already seeking to improve relations with Russia before the coup took place, as well as Israel and Egypt. But there can be no doubt that after the coup these plans were vastly accelerated.”

“I don’t think the West had a direct hand in orchestrating it, as Erdogan himself and members of his party have put out or insinuated, not very subtly, but I believe the West knew about it, and while it was going on they stood back and didn’t provide the assistance to a NATO member, as they have done in previous coups of Turkey,” said Sleboda. “They stood back to see what would happen before they very belatedly announced their support for Erdogan’s government.”

“Erdogan finds himself in a much tighter place now.”

Julian Assange Blows Up Theory Putin, Russia Behind Democratic Email Leak

In a Sunday interview on RT’s Underground with Afshin Rattansi, the whistleblower poked holes in a leading narrative spun by the Clinton campaign and regurgitated by the mainstream media that Russia is subverting the US presidential election.

Julian Assange argues that the one reason why you might want to know who the source of a document leak is to determine the veracity of the files, but that it is not what is at play in the media right now.

“Everyone accepts that the emails that we published, the 20,000 leaked DNC emails, are accurate. Nobody is saying that they did not say something that was listed in the emails,” explained Assange. “WikiLeaks has a perfect ten year record of never getting it wrong – it is an impressive record and it is the reason why it takes a while before we publish information because we want to keep that record.”

“Given that the real source is known, in this case it is the DNC, it is Debbie Wasserman Schultz, it is Luis Miranda the Communications Director — we know these are there emails so there’s quite a difficulty for the Clinton campaign to try to outmaneuver WikiLeaks. The content itself is unquestionable so instead you have to bring in another actor, so they had to bring in Russian intelligence agencies.”

Was Russian Intelligence Behind the Hacked Emails?

Assange explained that, if you listen carefully, Hillary Clinton does not claim that the emails released by WikiLeaks were the product of Russian hackers but instead “she has a slight variant on this saying that ‘some documents’” can be traced to Russian sources.

“The difference here is important. Do state actors hack the political organizations of other countries? Does the United States government do it? Absolutely. Do French intelligence, Chinese intelligence, and Russian intelligence hack political parties in order to collect intelligence? Yes. Did they hack the DNC or has at least one state actor hacked the DNC? If you read very carefully they say that they have been hacked several times over the last two years,” explained Assange.

The point that Assange was making is that to say that even if Russian agencies did hack US political organizations, as so many countries do although even that has not been established, it is an entirely different thing to say that Moscow then released the documents as opposed to any number of other hackers including both state actors and private hacktivists.

“The Director of National Intelligence of the United States said that both the DNC and the RNC were being attacked by a range of actors from philosophical opponents to states engaged in espionage,” said Assange. “Now, the head of the DNI, James Clapper, he is the boss of the boss of the CIA. If anyone knows what US intelligence agencies know, he knows. On Friday he had to come out and say that there is a lot of media hype and that they have no idea what the motivation is even if they knew who it was.”

“That is the head of the DNI dampening down ideas that they know who it is,” said the whistleblower.

“In the US media that has been a deliberate conflation of DNC leaks and DNC hacks which have occurred several times over the past two years a number of times,” explained Assange.

“I think the statement by Hillary Clinton on Fox needs to be directly tackled because it involves us directly. What she is trying to do is conflate our publication of pristine emails… with the publication of information from other media outlets of information from the DNC and that is purported to be the case and that is a series of Word documents and PDFs published by The Hill, by Gorka, and the Smoking Gun.”

“This is a completely separate batch of documents from the batch of 20,000 pristine emails that we released. In this batch of documents released by other media organizations there are claims that in the meta-data that somebody has done a document to PDF conversion and that in some cases the language of the computer that was used for that conversion is Russian. That is the circumstantial evidence that some Russian was involved or somebody who wanted to make it look like Russia,” said Assange.

“That is not the case in the emails that we released,” said the whistleblower once and for all separating fact from fiction and establishing that the public was being misled by the media conflating metadata pertaining to the release of a document or two by other outlets with the massive 20,000 document haul issued out by WikiLeaks.

‘Russia is back’: Top War Commander Calls Moscow a ‘Serious Adversary’

The top NATO General in Europe credits Russian forces with “impressive” progress and “agile” thinking, but falsely assumes that the resurgence of Russia necessitates a return to Cold War style belligerence.

“Russia is back,” said General Curtis Scaparrotti, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) in his opening statement at the Aspen Security Forum on Friday suggesting that Moscow’s once suppressed military capabilities have returned with a vengeance.The top NATO General in Europe complimented the Russian army on its shift towards a more professional, faster-learning, and more-agile way of thinking, but noted that Moscow’s significant progress makes for “a very serious adversary” for the United States.

As President Barack Obama once said in humorously blasting his 2012 presidential election rival Mitt Romney’s assertion that Russia is America’s primary foe – “The 1980s are calling, they want their foreign policy back.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has made similar assertions decrying the myth of ‘Russian aggression’ and saying one year ago that “I think that only an insane person and only in a dream can imagine that Russia would suddenly attack NATO.”

In fact, Russians have stood at the frontlines of the fight against Daesh terrorists in Syria and even offered to join the US-led 45-nation coalition combating the Islamic extremists with the hope of avoiding strategic mix-ups with NATO’s airstrikes, but Washington moved to ban Moscow from cooperating.

The running theme in 2016 seems to be that Russia is not only a country showing great advances, but that those steps towards progress pose some inherent danger to the West – a theme that has culminated in massive 30,000 troop war games along Russia’s border with Poland unfortunately timed on the 75th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of the former Soviet Union and now bizarre conspiracy theories that Moscow is sticking its thumb on the scale in the US presidential election.

Still there is no doubt that the Russian military’s capabilities have advanced to unparalleled levels as the world has looked on at the extraordinary power and skill of the country’s fighting force in Syria.

“When you look at the weapons systems… They’ve been watching us… They’ve fired long-range precision missiles from submarines, from surface ships, from medium bombers, all at Syria,” said General Scaparrotti gushing about Russia’s multi-layered defense capabilities.

“You can see that they’re learning, much of their doctrine is based on the early Soviet doctrine,” said General Scaparrotti. “They are pretty agile of thinking, if you look at the recent writings that their officers are doing. So they are actually taking a look at the world around them as they see it and adjusting their doctrine off that basis, which is impressive.”

What appears wanting in General Scaparrotti’s assessment, however, is the assumption that Russia is the enemy saying “You know, we have an adversary here that we have to take very seriously.”

Russia has responded calmly to growing threats from NATO including the installation of missile-defense systems in Romania and Poland as well as a permanent troop presence stationed on the Polish-Russian border – provocations that Russian Envoy to NATO Alexander Grushko warns are “bringing us back to the safety models of the Cold War era.”

Yes, “Russia is back,” but the 1980s are not.

Experts Warn ‘NATO has no Chance’ Against Russia’s Secret Super Submarines

A leading US think tank with considerable ties to the US defense industry recommends that NATO members massively increase their naval expenditures to tackle the threat of Russia’s secret submarines that nobody can really confirm exist.

A report by naval experts warns that Russia already has a small but sophisticated fleet of submarines capable of launching missile strikes across the globe and claim that Moscow has stepped up its secret submarine program to ‘Cold War’ levels leaving NATO members to scramble to develop its defenses.That is, at least, according to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) whose co-author Andrew Metrick claims “Russia operates a small number of very small, nuclear powered submarines that are capable of diving in excess of several thousand meters.”

“You can imagine what a clandestine deployable deep submergence vehicle could be used for,” says Metrick without actually explaining what this purported capability of the Russian navy portends. “It’s pretty scary to think about some of the types of missions.”

Metrick calls the secret program, which Russian officials have not confirmed the existence of, “the most shadowy part of the Russian undersea apparatus” and claims that it is “not operated by their navy, it’s operated by a separate branch of their Ministry of Defense.”

The report claims that these ships are armed with electronic warfare equipment, long-range cruise missiles, torpedoes and mines illustrating the rich imagination of US defense analysts.

So does Russia have a secretive army of deadly small-sized submarines or is the Western defense industry looking for a ripe excuse to sell more naval military hardware.

The report provides a caution that the number of US submarines is dwindling and says that the UK’s Royal Navy is at its “lowest ebb” in terms of naval firepower. Breaking Defense interviewed Jerry Hendrix, a retired captain with another hawkish US think tank, the Center for New American Security, who said “NATO is in a bad place as an alliance with regard to Russia’s underwater resurgence.”

Not surprisingly, the report’s recommendation is that NATO increase its defense expenditures or risk being toppled by Putin’s super submarines – the mythical threat of Russian aggression and return of Cold War-style rhetoric appears to be the gift that keeps on giving for America’s defense industry.

‘Irreparable Consequence’: China, Russia Angry About THAAD in South Korea

The United States and South Korea are obsessed with containing North Korea, but Washington’s aggressive expansion of anti-missile systems in the Asian peninsula, as well as in the Baltics, leave Moscow and Beijing reticent to trust America’s leadership.

The United States and South Korea announced plans in July to deploy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system, ostensibly to counter threats from North Korea, but the move received immediate condemnation from Russia and China, who view the installation as a veiled attempt by Washington to undermine Beijing and Moscow’s mutual nuclear deterrent.

Moscow immediately joined Beijing in warning the United States that the deployment would have “irreparable consequences.”

“This missile defense system tends to undermine stability in the region. We hope that our partners will avoid any actions that could have irreparable consequences,” cautioned the Russian foreign ministry in the wake of Washington and Seoul’s announcement.

The renewed tensions between the US and South Korea on one side and Russia and China on the other places Washington at a most inconvenient impasse as Pyongyang’s threats escalate. North Korea’s foreign ministry recently said that the Obama Administration’s move to place sanctions directly against “Supreme Leader” Kim Jong-Un was “the worst hostility and an open declaration of war against the DPRK,” according to North Korea’s KCNA News.

“Now that the US declared a war on the DPRK, any problem arising in the relations with the US will be handled under the latter’s wartime law,” warned North Korea.

While Washington attempts to control Pyongyang, Russia and China are both more concerned with the anti-missile systems deployed by the United States, not only in South Korea, but also in Romania and Poland.

On Tuesday, Loud & Clear’s Brian Becker sat down with Michael Elleman, a former UN weapons inspector and consulting senior fellow for missile defense at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Washington DC, to discuss the technical capabilities of the THAAD anti-missile system and to examine Russia and China’s objections to its deployment.

What is THAAD? Why is South Korea allowing its deployment?

“The THAAD system consists of a very powerful radar, interceptors, a battle management system, and power and cooling units to allow it to operate. It intercepts incoming ballistic missiles above the atmosphere generally, so it offers a wide area of coverage,” said Elleman. “You can cover 1/2 to 2/3 of South Korea using this single battery of the THAAD system.”

“A decision was made in Seoul a couple of weeks ago to accept the American offer to deploy THAAD,” said Elleman. “It will probably take a year or two to bring it up to operational status because there are a couple of steps that need to be taken including training a crew to operate it and also building this particular system and shipping it to Korea to position it, so I don’t expect it to be operational for at least 18 months.”

What are China and Russia’s concerns about the THAAD system?

China’s foreign minister said of the deployment of THAAD that the recent move by South Korea harms mutual trust between the two countries. Elleman said that Moscow and Beijing’s concerns is not based on the system itself, but rather that it sets a disturbing precedent against maintaining mutual deterrence.

“I think both China and Russia fear a large expansion of American anti-missile capability. The THAAD deployed in South Korea does not pose a direct operational threat to the mainland of China,” said Elleman. “It can do some detection with a powerful radar, but it is minimal and it does not enhance America’s national missile defense capabilities, except for maybe at the very margins.”

“The objections right now are political and diplomatic. They are worried about what America may do in the future, working with South Korea and Japan. They are worried about this setting a precedent.”

“This is the same set of objections Russia had about NATO introducing missile defense into Romania before they introduced it into Poland,” said Elleman. “It was not a direct threat, but if it is enlarged and enhanced over time, it may well pose a threat.”

Former NATO Chief: Russia to Invade Poland, Start World War lll ‘Overnight’

In a briefing report, NATO’s former European chief suggested that the Alliance must “significantly increase the troop presence in Poland” or else Russia will catch the West by surprise with a sneak attack.

On Sunday, NATO’s former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, General Sir Richard Shirreff, offered a chilling albeit absurdist warning claiming that Russia has troops ready for a lightning takeover of Eastern Europe and that President Vladimir Putin may be willing to set off World War III in a matter of hours.

“It is clear that Russia is capable of surprising the West… with potentially devastating implications for eastern Poland and fatal consequences to the Alliance,” warned General Shirreff.

In a briefing document entitled “Arming for Deterrence” for the Atlantic Council think-tank the former military commander said that Putin could easily “artificially generate any pretext that suits his propaganda narrative” to justify war with the West in a matter of hours.

“Even if Moscow currently has no immediate intent to challenge NATO directly, this may unexpectedly change overnight and can be implemented with great speed, following already prepared plans,” said the General. “The capability to do so is, to a large extent, in place.”

“The biggest threat for NATO today is a miscalculation by Russia that it could outmaneuver the Alliance by creating a quick fait accompli inside NATO’s borders,” states the General. “This is based on the Russian assumption that it has a significant time advantage over NATO and that the allies could, through intimidation, uncertainty, and disinformation be influenced not to escalate a limited conflict into a full-fledged one.”

The fantastical scenario holds at a premise that the Kremlin somehow ignorant of the legal requirements of the NATO treaty that would require the United States to intervene immediately if a partner nation was under siege by a foreign threat – something that Russian President Vladimir Putin has long assured he is well aware of.

“I think that only an insane person and only in a dream can imagine that Russia would suddenly attack NATO. I think some countries are simply taking advantage of people’s fears with regard to Russia. They just want to play the role of front-line countries that should receive some supplementary military, economic, financial or some other aid,” Putin explained near a year ago.

Yet the mystical threat of ‘Russian aggression’ seems to be a favorite fantasy within the echo chambers of the Western defense establishment that continues to provoke Russia by engaging in a series of massive war games – over 30,000 in the Anaconda War Games not so appropriately timed during the 75th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of the former Soviet Union – which led President of the former Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev to question whether NATO’s activities are a pretext to an invasion.

Moscow has responded with its own military drills including several mass mock mobilizations along its border with eastern Europe – a proportionate response to the threat that Russia faces as a result of needless NATO saber rattling. It is this, almost ironically, that raises a parallel concern for General Shirreff as was raised by former President Gorbachev of a sudden attack.

“Turning one of these exercises into an operation against one or several of the Baltic states would give very little warning time to NATO,” said the General. “Russia’s forces in the Western Military District can be quickly and substantially reinforced by units and formations from other parts of Russia under the cover of planned or snap military drills.”

In a bout of absolute absurdity, General Shirriff’s prescription to remedy the concern facing NATO in the Baltic region I to significantly bolster permanent troop numbers in Poland – the presence of which has been the primary source of escalation in the fabricated conflict.

“There is an urgent need to strengthen Poland’s defense capacity in order to reduce the temptation for Russia to spring a surprise attack,” the General’s report concludes.