ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) are driven past the stand with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and other high ranking officials during a military parade marking the 105th birth anniversary of country's founding father Kim Il Sung, in Pyongyang April 15, 2017. Damir Sagolj, Reuters U.S. President Donald Trump has employed tough rhetoric in response to North Korea's recent missile tests, but the new president's options appear limited in dealing with a challenge that has vexed his Oval Office predecessors. Most options fall into four categories: economic sanctions, covert action, diplomatic negotiations and military force. ECONOMIC SANCTIONS North Korea is already among the most heavily sanctioned nations, facing numerous strictures to limit its ability to conduct commerce, participate in international finance and trade in weapons and other contraband. Despite those measures, "most analysts agree that U.S. and multilateral sanctions have not prevented North Kor...

Strategy of sending in the US navy and attacking Syria and Afghanistan likely only to boost Pyongyang’s nuclear resolve North Korea missile launch ends in failure Donald Trump’s approach to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un appears to have made the leader only more determined in his nuclear ambitions. Photograph: Wong Maye-E/AP Tom Phillips in Beijing and Justin McCurry in Tokyo In the lead-up to North Korea’s latest missile test , Donald Trump had battled to convince Kim Jong-un he was picking a fight with the wrong guy. The US president pounded Syria with 59 Tomahawk missiles and then ordered a naval “armada” into the waters around the Korean peninsula. He dropped the “mother of all bombs” on eastern Afghanistan and used Twitter to hammer home his message. “North Korea is looking for trouble,” the US president tweeted last week as Kim’s technicians made the final preparations for Sunday’s botched but nevertheless defiant test. But experts say Pyongyang’s latest act has und...

Finian Cunningham Whether a nuclear war breaks out within the next few days or not – the despicable fact remains, that the entire world is being held hostage by American military madness. © AP PHOTO/ FORD WILLIAMS/U.S. NAVY It seems only a matter of time before the US finally triggers a war with any number of foreign states that it designates as "enemies" – North Korea, Syria, Iran, Russia or China. Or any other state whom Washington deems to be a "threat" in its paranoid hegemonic view of the world. The common denominator here is US military aggression. And what makes US military power so dangerous is that the people who run that country are, to be blunt, so stupid – full of their own delusion self-righteousness and ignorance. US news outlet NBC is reporting that the Trump administration is ready to launch pre-emptive military strikes on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Meanwhile, North Korea says that it is prepared to pre-empt a...

Click to see the full-size map Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) began a military operation to liberate from ISIS the al-Thawra district northwest of the Old Mosul in the western part of the Mosul city. Earlier, ISF got control of the strategic Abaa district. ISF, led by the Iraqi Army, is currently developing its operation aimed at encircling ISIS units in the Old Mosul, the most important stronghold of the terrorist group in the city. Click to see the full-size map According to the Iraqi Army, Iraqi soldiers have started using the Korean Raysun MD1 system to jam ISIS armed and unarmed drones. Thus, ISF have significantly reduced the ISIS capabilities to use them. Form its side, ISIS claimed that it was able to damage an armored vehicle belonging to SWAT forces during the government advance in the Al-Thawra district. The group also claimed that its fighters had killed or wounded 18 Iraqi soldiers during clashes in the Ras Al-Jadah area in Mosul. ISIS was able to shot down an Ir...

Originally appeared at VeteransToday The Russian Defense Ministry said that US radars cover almost all territory of Russia. “The stationary radar systems of the US missile and nuclear warning system cover all possible trajectories of Russian ballistic missiles in the direction of the United States,” Lt. Gen. Viktor Poznikhir, first deputy chief of the General Staff’s Main Operational Department, said. According to him, the zone of control of the US stations covers almost entire Russia. The United States’ long-range radars in Alaska, Romania and Poland increase its ability to intercept Russian missiles, he said. “The US missile defense system’s information and reconnaissance assets are already providing not only detection of the launch of Russian ballistic missiles, their tracking on the flight trajectory, but also the delivery of target designations to combat systems to intercept the ballistic missiles’ warheads.” Poznikhir said at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva that the US ra...

Source: http://aa.com.tr/en Turkish President Recep Erdogan has declared victory in the referendum on the constitutional reform package and congratulated the heads of political parties that supported the Yes campaign. Erdogan called the ‘yes’ vote a historic decision by the Turkish people and said that the decision will benefit the country. “Turkey for the first time in its history has decided with the will of the parliament and its people on such an important change. For the first time in the history of the Republic, we are changing our ruling system through civil politics. That is why it is very significant,” Erdogan said. Turkey’s Anadolu Agency reported : As of 9.25 p.m. (1825GMT), unofficial results showed Yes with 51.34 percent — 24,789,242 votes — while No had 48.66 percent, or 23,499,390 votes. Sunday’s referendum asked voters to choose Yes or No on an 18-article bill that would see the country switch from a parliamentary to a presidential system, among other changes. Sour...

One of a multitude of stories in the usual barrage of anti-Russia war hysteria, concerns the reported deployment of a brand-new weapon system whose existence, if confirmed, would represent a transgression against the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. The INF Treaty has been in force since the late 1980s and bans land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with ranges between 500km and 5,500km. Since that time, both the U.S. and Russia have not only eliminated existing stocks of weapons falling into this category, but also refrained from testing or deploying new ones. The recently fielded Iskander brigades, whose launch vehicles can use both cruise and ballistic missiles, is compatible with the INF Treaty in that the range of the missiles it utilizes are 500km or less. In usual dramatic fashion, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Paul Selva, at a House Armed Services Committee hearing held in Washington D.C. on March 8th, accused Russia of deploying the new missile...