Politics

This past Saturday, two weeks after the White House unveiled new sanctions on two dozen Iranian entities in retaliation for a recent ballistic missile test, Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard announced it was set to conduct military drills this week despite warnings from the United States not to engage in such activity. General Mohammad Pakpour, commander of the force's ground units, told a news conference that "the manoeuvres called 'Grand Prophet 11' will start Monday and last three days." and warned that "rockets would be used" without specifying which kind.

Submitted by Martin Armstrong via ArmstrongEconomics.com,

In China's latest test of the US response to its escalating claims of islands in the South China Sea, Reuters reports that Beijing has "nearly finished building almost two dozen structures on artificial islands in the South China Sea that appear designed to house long-range surface-to-air missiles." Predictably, such a development will likely raise questions about whether and how the United States will respond, given its vows to take a tough line on China in the South China Sea. The structures appear to be 20 meters (66 feet) long and 10 meters (33 feet) high.

Submitted by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The Gallup organization samples Americans’ approval-disapproval of Russia in February of each year, and the approval-figure for this year is only slightly more than half as high as it had been back in 2012 when Obama publicly mocked his Presidential-campaign opponent Mitt Romney’s famous statement that «Russia, this is, without question, our number one geopolitical foe».

While the U.S. outspends all NATO allies when it comes to overall defence spending in relation to her GDP, Statista's Dyfed Loesche notes - and President Trump is very well aware of - the U.S. is also the prime direct financer of NATO.

However, direct contribution are more evenly split between the major NATO powers. Germany for example, spends only 1.19 percent of her GDP into defence (USA = 3.61 percent) but seemingly pulls its weight when it comes to direct funding of NATO. This does not include contributions to particular military operations.