Submitted by Peter Korzun via Strategic-Culture.org,
It should be noted that quite often the most interesting arms contracts escape media attention. That’s how it was in 2016.
Signing a multi-billion-dollar military aid package between the United States and Israel and the subsequent White House approval for long-awaited fighter sales to the Middle East hit the radar screen.
Two days after China demonstratively showed off a live-fire exercise involving its one and only aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, in the Yellow Sea, with the Defense Ministry hinting that the carrier would next sail to the South China Sea after announcing that "as a next step it will conduct scheduled cross-sea training and tests," Beijing did just that and as Reuters reports, a group of Chinese warships led by the country's sole aircraft carrier passed south of Taiwan on Monday, and entered the top half of the South China Sea, in what China has termed a routine exercise.
Vladimir Putin has warned that he is prepared to go to war following Turkey’s decision to scramble 12 fighter jets on Wednesday. In a clear act of provocation, Turkey scrambled the F-16 fighter jets in defiance to heightened tensions with Moscow. The jets took off from Eskisehir Air Base just one day after Russian ambassador Andrei Karlov was shot dead by Turkish police officer Mevlut Mert Altintas. Express.co.uk reports: Moscow responded with fury, with a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry saying it regarded the assassination as an “act of terrorism”.
The United States Air Force has apologised for “accidentally” killing 90 innocent Iraqis in a massive airstrike over Mosul in Northern Iraq. Over 90 Iraqi soldiers lost their lives when American fighter jets from the USAF struck them, mistaking them for ISIS militants. According to an Iraqi official, the US military had attacked Iraqi soldiers on Friday, destroying eight infantry fighting vehicles and wounding 100 soldiers belonging to the 9th Armored Division.
Submitted by Brian Cloughley via Strategic-Culture.org,
Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States are the world’s five «nuclear weapons states», a description officially recognised in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which lays down that «each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices…»