ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

By Nick Turse For three days, wearing a kaleidoscope of camouflage patterns, they huddled together on a military base in Florida. They came from U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and U.S. Army Special Operations Command, from France and Norway, from Denmark, Germany, and Canada: 13 nations in all. They came to plan a years-long “Special Operations-centric” military campaign supported by conventional forces, a multinational undertaking that -- if carried out -- might cost hundreds of millions, maybe billions, of dollars and who knows how many lives. Ask the men involved and they’ll talk about being mindful of “sensitivities” and “cultural differences,” about the importance of “collaboration and coordination,” about the value of a variety of viewpoints, about “perspectives” and “partnerships.” Nonetheless, behind closed doors and unbeknownst to most of the people in their own countries, let alone the countries fixed in their sights, a coterie of Western special ops planners were s...

By Ron Paul Militarism and military spending are everywhere on the rise, as the new Cold War propaganda seems to be paying off. The new “threats” that are being hyped bring big profits to military contractors and the network of think tanks they pay to produce pro-war propaganda. Here are just a few examples: The German government announced last week that it would purchase 100 more “Leopard” tanks – a 45 percent increase in the country’s inventory. Germany had greatly reduced its inventory of tanks as the end of the Cold War meant the end of any threat of a Soviet ground invasion of Europe. The German government now claims these 100 new tanks, which may cost nearly half a billion dollars, are necessary to respond to the new Russian assertiveness in the region. Never mind that Russia has neither invaded nor threatened any country in the region, much less a NATO member country. The US Cold War-era nuclear bunker under Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, which was all but shut down in the 25 yea...

By Mike Whitney “Will the reactionary rulers of Saudi Arabia manage to break the legitimate hopes and enthusiastic dreams burning in the hearts of thousands of young people of the Arabian Peninsula? Never!” — Gamal Abd al-Nasser, President of Egypt 1956 to 1970  In its ongoing effort to prevent the rise of “any popularly supported government in the region”, the US has joined Saudi Arabia’s savage war of annihilation against Yemen’s northern tribal rebels, the Houthis. The Pentagon has expedited the delivery of bombs, ammunition and guidance systems to assist the Saudi-led campaign and is providing logistical support to maximize the impact of its bombing raids. The US has also set up a “joint fusion center”, provided “aerial re-fueling platforms” and “advanced US-made weaponry” with the explicit intention of suppressing a militant group that overthrew the US-backed puppet government in the capital of Sanaa in the fall of 2014. The level of coordination between the makeshift Arab coa...

(Reuters/Social media via Reuters TV) Between 5,000 and 6,000 Europeans have traveled to Syria to join the Islamic State, the EU Commissioner for Justice says stressing that 1,450 of them are French citizens. The EU officials believe that “the figures are strongly under-estimated,” as foreign fighters are hard to keep track of, French newspaper Le Figaro reported citing Vera Jourova, the EU justice commissioner. "At the European level, we estimate that 5,000 to 6,000 individuals have left for Syria," she told the paper in an interview. Jourova added that the majority of them – 1,450 people – are French nationals. The Commissioner added that they are eyeing more measures to avoid the suspected jihadists leaving the EU countries, considering “prevention [measures] rather than suppression” of the flow. “We’ve allotted a budget of €2.5 million to provide training of prison and probation staff, as well as that of European prosecutors,” Jourova said. The EU nationals traveling t...

S-300 launchers. (RIA Novosti/Andrei Aleksandrov) 61 The Russian president has repealed the ban prohibiting the delivery of S-300 missile air defense systems to Iran, according to the Kremlin's press service. The ban was introduced by former President Dmitry Medvedev in 2010. “[The presidential] decree lifts the ban on transit through Russian territory, including airlift, and the export from the Russian Federation to the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also the transfer to the Islamic Republic of Iran outside the territory of the Russian Federation, both by sea and by air, of air defense missile systems S-300,”says the information note accompanying the document, RIA Novosti reported. The decree enters into force upon the president’s signature. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov commented on the decision, saying that Moscow’s voluntary embargo on S-300 deliveries was no longer necessary, due to the progress in Iran’s nuclear talks made in Lausanne on April 2. He added that in the ...

By Robert Barsocchini Most Americans have no idea any of these events are occurring or have only vague, US government/press-created notions of them, but many who are cognizant – principally the abandoned people themselves – express confusion. Why would eight countries, including Russia, China, and India, carry out risky missions to save their own citizens, as well as foreign nationals, stuck in Yemen, but the US would staunchly refuse to do so? All we ever hear from the US government and press is that the US is so incredibly good and altruistic. So, how could this be happening? There is nothing confusing about the US government abandoning its own citizens in a war zone but rescuing and assisting Saudi bombers in the same war zone (“U.S. military assets had been used to rescue two Saudi pilots” McClatchy ; Pentagon spokesman told McClatchy the US will be refueling Saudi bombers “every day from now on.”) The recently conducted and largest study to date of who effects the actions of th...

Arabian Game of Thrones It might be hard to imagine, especially since Riyadh and the Houthis fought a war in Saada earlier in 2009 and 2010, but the House of Saud has actually worked with the Houthis before the Kingdom launched Operation Decisive Storm on March 25, 2015. The Kingdom’s engagement of the Houthi movement was part of the House of Saud’s hoary and trite dirty game inside Yemen. In this regard, the House of Saud has been playing different Yemeni governments, the Houthis, the Muslims Brotherhood, and Al-Qaeda all against one another in a Saudi real life version of George R.R. Martin’s best-selling book series Game of Thrones. During the Cold War the US, the House of Saud, Britain, and Israel all supported the royalists in North Yemen and supported the idea of Zaidi imamate against Yemeni republicans. Once the republicans won the war, the Saudis began funding Wahhabi programs and schools to convert the Zaidis and to create sectarian divisions in North Yemen. After South Yemen ...