ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

by PETER LEE I’m expecting tactical nuclear weapons to reappear overtly in the US military equation for Asia… …but only after the US Navy gets its chance to feast at the pivot trough for its long-for but perhaps strategically less-than-vital conventional forces buildout in Asia. I have an article up exclusively on Asia Times, The Case of the Missing Nukes …and a Disappearing US Mission in Asia, concerning an interesting and, I fear, transitory lack of tactical nuclear weapons in theater in Asia. US land based tactical nukes for the army and air force were pulled out of Asia at the end of the Cold War and it would require major political and diplomatic handwringing to put them back. The US Navy got out of the tactical nuke business for surface vessels worldwide at the same time. The Pentagon then stripped the Navy of its submarine tactical nuke, the nuclear-tipped Tomahawk cruise missile, the TLAM-N, formally and irrevocably retiring it in 2013 over the objections of Japan and a certain

As the main Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam appeared in a French court for the first time since his extradition, his Belgian lawyer described his former client as a “little moron” and more of a follower than a leader, with the “intelligence of an ashtray.” Refusing to address charges formally brought against him by the French court on Wednesday, Abdeslam claimed to be tired from the “quite rough”extradition, when elite French military police flew him to France. The 26-year-old Abdeslam has been scheduled to appear in court on May 20. The sole survivor of the Islamist cell which killed 130 people in a series of shootings and suicide bombings in Paris on Nov. 13 stands accused of belonging to a terrorist organization, murder, kidnapping and possessing weapons and explosives. As Abdeslam was handed over to the French authorities and a French defense team, his Belgian lawyer, Sven Mary, who has spoken to the suspect on eight occasions following his capture in Brussels on March 1

RT Barack Obama wants to leave a legacy that shows some sign of a successful presidency. However he continues to experiment in Syria, which may hamper the Geneva peace talks, says Hans-Christof Von Sponeck, former UN Assistant Secretary-General. President Obama has announced the biggest escalation of American intervention in Syria to date with a further 250 troops, on top of dozens who are already on the ground. "Given the success, I've approved the deployment of up to 250 additional US personnel in Syria, including special forces to keep up this momentum," the US President said in a speech at a trade fair in Hanover , Germany. "They're not going to be leading the fight on the ground, but they will be essential in providing the training and assisting local forces as they continue to drive ISIL back," he said. RT: Mr. Sponeck, President Obama is now sending hundreds of American troops to help what he called “local forces” in Syria. That's a big vagu

Washington DC’s Tenleytown and Friendship Heights Metro stations were evacuated after reports that an explosion in a mechanical room had caused a fire and heavy smoke. Witnesses describe a chaos and poor communications by metro staff. People reported hearing blasts and seeing flames and smoke underground. Social media messages described the panic on a smoke-filled Red Line train. DC Fire and EMS have tweeted out that there had been no casualties, but there is still smoke between the Friendship Heights & Tenleytown/AU stations. The incident was caused by “trouble inside a mechanical room,” DC Fire and EMS reported on its Twitter account. According to the emergency response team, the heavy smoke is concentrated around an insulator that caught on fire at the platform. RT America producer Shefali Kapadia got stuck at the Bethesda metro station because of the fire. She reported that crowds of people were rushing from the metro and across the street, trying to get to other means of tra

Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) is selling antiquities looted from Syria to buyers in the US and Europe as a means of funding its terrorist activities. The jihadists are transporting the artifacts out of the country via Turkey according to documents from IS’s Ministry of Natural Resources, obtained exclusively by an RT documentary crew. Yaya J. Fanusie , director of analysis at the Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance told RT that this is a “very strategically important source of revenue for Islamic State”. “There’s definitely a pipeline that goes through the states that border the region, so Turkey is one location where there’s a lot of smuggling,” he said. Middlemen have told the center that buyers are coming from the US and Europe – but they haven’t documented the final buyers. Fanusie was among a number of experts who testified at a special hearing held by the US House Financial Services Committee’s Task Force to Investigate Terrorism Financing this week. The he

Pyongyang said it will stop conducting nuclear tests if the US puts an end to its annual military drills in the South, North Korea’s foreign minister told AP on Saturday. “Stop the nuclear war exercises in the Korean Peninsula, then we should also cease our nuclear tests,” Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong said in his first-ever interview with Western media. “If we continue on this path of confrontation, this will lead to very catastrophic results, not only for the two countries but for the whole entire world as well.” At the same time, Ri stressed that his country has the right to maintain a nuclear deterrent and will not be bullied by international sanctions. Korea’s foreign minister asserted that it was the US that had pushed the North to develop nuclear weapons as a self-defense strategy, adding that the only thing that could dissuade the country from carrying out its tests, would be for the US to halt its military exercises with Seoul. “It is really crucial for the United States gove

EU-Turkey relations are like cattle trading with the EU trying to turn Turkey into a prison camp for refugees and Erdogan using it to boost his popularity, says Firat Demir, Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Oklahoma. Germany’s Chancellor Merkel is heading to Turkey on Saturday to discuss implementing the migrant deal that was sealed with Ankara in March. Under it the EU will deport illegal migrants to Turkey while providing Ankara with financial aid and promises of a visa-free regime for Turks. RT: Merkel's coalition partner the Social Democrats have urged the chancellor to send a message on freedom of speech during her visit. How do you think that will go? Firat Demir: First of all, regarding the visa-free travel for Turkish citizens, that has been a disgrace for the EU since 1963. The EU agreed to visa-free travel for citizens of Turkey in 1963, and confirmed it in 1970 and even as recent as 2009 the European Council of Human Rights struck

Many people have been killed and wounded in a blast that rocked central Kabul during the morning rush hour on Tuesday, President Ashraf Ghani said. Afghanistan's Tolo News channel said at least 28 people were killed and more than 200 others injured in the coordinated attack. The attack, claimed by the Taliban, apparently targeted the offices of Afghanistan's main security agency. In a statement, the Presidential Palace condemned the attack "in the strongest possible terms," saying a number of people had been killed or wounded. A spokesman for an emergency hospital in the city told Reuters that the facility had received eight lightly wounded Afghan soldiers. A thick plume of black smoke was seen rising from the vicinity of the sprawling US embassy in the Afghan capital after the powerful blast. Warning sirens were sounded at the embassy compound, which is also close to NATO headquarters in Afghanistan. An Afghan official said a possible bomber carried out the attack