Why Does Trump Want U.S. Troops Back in Afghanistan?
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The outright re-establishment of US military bases in the country and its relentless and escalating war games on land, sea, and air are flagrant manifestations of US imperialist domination of the Philippines. This further tightens the grip of US imperialism on the Philippine neocolonial state, especially on the puppet Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).
(Primer) A Decade of EDCA: US military bases and its expanding war games in the Philippines
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Some new Ukrainian soldiers refuse to fire at the enemy. Others, according to commanders and fellow fighters, struggle to assemble weapons or to coordinate basic combat movements. A few have even walked away from their posts, abandoning the battlefield altogether.
While Ukraine presses on with its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, its troops are still losing precious ground along the country’s eastern front — a grim erosion that military commanders blame in part on poorly trained recruits drawn from a recent mobilization drive, as well as Russia’s clear superiority in ammunition and air power.
Poorly trained recruits contribute to loss of Ukrainian territory on eastern front, commanders say
Related:
Reuters: Russia and Ukraine report gains as some Ukrainians flee strategic city
But although the incursion is an embarrassment for Russia, Moscow’s forces have continued their gradual advances of the past few months against tired Ukrainian troops in eastern Ukraine worn down by 2-1/2 years of heavy fighting.
Moscow said its troops had taken control of the village of Mezhove in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, and that they had beaten back an attempt by a Ukrainian force to infiltrate its border in a different region to Kyiv’s Aug. 6 incursion.
Ukrainian authorities say Russian troops are now just 10 km (six miles) outside Pokrovsk, an important transport hub in eastern Ukraine, and this week started evacuating elderly residents and children.
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Moscow’s capture of Pokrovsk, which lies at an intersection of roads and a railway line, would give Russia options to advance in new directions and also cut supply routes used by the Ukrainian military in the Donetsk region.
WSJ: Ukraine Moves to Encircle Russian Troops in Kursk and Digs In for Long Fight
The incursion hasn’t, so far, shifted the dynamic on the war’s main battlefields in eastern Ukraine, where Russia is advancing in toward Pokrovsk, a key Ukrainian logistical hub, and Toretsk, a city on strategically important high ground.
The US Is Sending $125 Million in New Military Aid to Ukraine, Officials Say
DARWIN, July 26 (Reuters) – The U.S. military is building infrastructure in northern Australia to help it project power into the South China Sea if a crisis with China erupts, a Reuters review of documents and interviews with U.S. and Australian defence officials show.
US military, seeking strategic advantages, builds up Australia’s northern bases amid China tensions
Related:
US military eyes Australia’s Indian Ocean toehold to deter China
SYDNEY – A remote Australian island close to an Indian Ocean chokepoint for Chinese oil shipments is on a list of possible locations for US military construction aimed at deterring China, with the US saying it “may or may not” support American forces.
Australian-based Marines ready to support Manila in sea-territory skirmish
A recent article appearing in the US-based Business Insider titled, “Russia’s showing NATO its hand in the air war over Ukraine,” would provide a showcase of the deep deficit in military expertise driving increasingly unsustainable, unachievable foreign policy objectives. The article summarizes a number of interviews conducted with Western “airpower experts,” exhibiting a profound misunderstanding of modern military aviation, air defenses, and their role on and above the battlefield.
The West is Learning the Wrong Lessons about Airpower in Ukraine
After the signing of the Argyle Declaration between Venezuela and Guyana on December 14, 2023, many events have occurred. Instead of reducing tensions as the agreement signed in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines had intended, it seems that tensions have been rising steadily and silently.
Washington Escalates Pressure Against Venezuela on the Essequibo Front
Related:
Government and corporate funded CSIS: The Essequibo Pressure Cooker
2020 Guyanese Election & Venezuela-Guyana Border Dispute
Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela will be targeted again for regime change by the CIA front, NED.
To prosecute war against Russia, China, or Iran, protection of the major forward bases of the United States Air Force would be the prerequisite upon which success would be predicated.
To adequately cover even one of these large airbases against missile strikes of just 100-200 units of high-performance drones, cruise-missiles, ballistic missiles, and hypersonic missiles — plus numerous decoys — would easily require an entire Patriot battalion.
Even with a 100% interception rate, a pair of 100-missile strike packages over the course of a day would still compel a PAC-3 burn rate of at least 300 missiles, given that, as a general rule, two PAC-3 missiles are launched at every incoming target.
But of course, the interception rate would be considerably lower than 100%. And given that the Patriot command, radar, and launcher units — along with missile storage sites — would be primary targets, there would be a substantial attrition rate of the highly immobile Patriot systems themselves. (The Russians have already clearly demonstrated the vulnerability of the Patriot systems to counter-battery missile strikes. At least three Patriot batteries have been destroyed in Ukraine.)
In an attempt to cover just three large airbases against a series of salvos of 100+ missiles of various types, the entire US stockpile of PAC-3 interceptors could very conceivably be exhausted in little more than a week or two.
Current annual production could easily be consumed in little more than a day or two.
This is the reality of 21st century high-intensity conflict against an adversary with the capability to shoot back — a kind of war for which the United States military is woefully ill-prepared, both materially and doctrinally.
Ukraine expects to receive 24 modern fighter jets, says Air Force Command
But even once negotiations for the delivery of these jets will be completed, Ukraine will not be able to use them on the battlefield for months, as training of pilots and technicians will take at least half a year, Ihnat warned.
Related:
Ukraine Situation Report: Kyiv Improving Airfields Anticipating Western Fighters
There is currently one Ukrainian student in the U.S. Air Force Aviation Leadership Program, which provides pilot training in the T-6A, not geared ultimately for any one specific combat aircraft, Air Force Capt. Rachel Salpietra, an Air Force Secretary spokesperson told The War Zone Friday afternoon.
“Ukraine has been participating in the program with us for the last 12 years,” she added. “Ukrainian maintainers and engineers have not participated in any training with the U.S. Air Force for the past several years.”
UK might donate fighter jets to Ukraine for air policing – The Telegraph
Commenting on the matter, one of the newspaper’s sources said “never say never,” while another one stressed that “it’s not the priority now,” regarding fighter jet transfers.
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