U.S. Responsible for 36 Percent of Total Global Military Expenditure

trust.org

Global military expenditure reached its highest level last year since the end of the Cold War, fueled by increased spending in the United States and China, the world's two biggest economies, a leading defence think-tank said on Monday.

In its annual report, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said overall global military spending in 2018 hit $1.82 trillion, up 2.6 percent on the previous year.

That is the highest figure since 1988, when such data first became available as the Cold War began winding down.

U.S. military spending rose 4.6 percent last year to reach $649 billion, leaving it still by far the world's biggest spender. It accounted for 36 percent of total global military expenditure, nearly equal to the following eight biggest-spending countries combined, SIPRI said.

China, the second biggest spender, saw military expenditure rise 5.0 percent to $250 billion last year, the 24th consecutive annual increase.

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An Artificial Intelligence System That Can Sense People's Movement Through Walls

Geekologie

RF-Pose, a new artificial intelligence system developed by researchers at MIT's Computer Science And Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) can sense a person's posture and movement through walls by analyzing the radio signals emitted by wireless devices that bounce off their body. *dons metal pasta strainer helmet* "You're only amplifying the signals." Curses!

The researchers use a neural network to analyze radio signals that bounce off people's bodies, and can then create a dynamic stick figure that walks, stops, sits, and moves its limbs as the person performs those actions.

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See also: The creepy AI that can predict the future: Machine that anticipates your movements several minutes in advance could pave the way for next-level Big Brother surveillance

Missile manufacturer Raytheon's value rose by $2.5 billion immediately following the Syria strikes.

Blacklisted News

‘Maybe we’ll help the Saudis send some troops of their own to offset the influence of Iran and Russia’, speculated Jim Cramer on his CNBC show Mad Money. ‘That’s good news for these arms dealers, plus defense is the one place that Congress is going to spend lots and lots of money.’

It seemed as though Cramer had accidentally stumbled upon a foul cornerstone of the US economy whilst presenting another episode of his light-hearted investing tips program that has been running since 2005: that certain corporations make an absolute killing on US foreign interventions and the stock market reflects this.

He noted the missile manufacturer Raytheon as the most bullish in the group of US defense giants. ‘Raytheon could have a lot more room to run because it just broke out above a rising triangle pattern’, he claimed.

In fact, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company saw its market capitalisation rise by roughly $2.5 billion in response to President Donald Trump’s decision to strike Syria. This caps a few years of impressively solid growth for Raytheon, whose stock price has risen roughly 30% since the start of Saudi Arabia’s carpet-bombing of Yemen using their American-made smart missiles.

Ultimately, Cramer’s assertion that ‘political worries can boost top defense stocks’ is a well-evidenced paradigm that consistently demonstrates its own validity whenever a US-led intervention occurs. However, to chalk it off as some kind of coincidence rather than a creature of political design is incredibly naive.

To look at the movement of executives between the Pentagon and military-industrial giants like Raytheon enabled by lax to non-existent conflict of interest regulations paints an incredibly clear picture – the US is governed by ‘experts’ who have made a career out of military profiteering.

Take William H. Swanson for example, the CEO of Raytheon from 2004 to 2014. He holds a keycard to the Pentagon as a member of the Secretary of the Air Force Advisory Board, who were naturally intimately involved in the recent Syria strikes. No regulations prohibit Swanson from also serving on various military advocacy groups such as the Association of the United States Army, the Navy League, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the National Defense Industrial Association and the Aerospace Industries Association.

In 2014 Swanson held 0.23% of Raytheon’s stock – well over the 0.10% industry average for CEOs – that at the time was worth about $41.9 million. There are no regulations in place that would force Swanson to part with his stake in the company or recuse himself in order to sit on the Air Force Advisory Board, and there is no indication that he did this.

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Brain implants are happening: Defense Advanced Research Agency is ready to run trials with closed-loop mood control chips linked to AI

The Next Web

 

Brain implants or other types of neural links, such as Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) between the brain, the internet, and the cloud, are quickly entering the realm of science rather than science fiction.

The Defense Advanced Research Agency is ready to run trials with closed-loop mood control chips linked to AI that can deliver an electrical impulse to regulate a soldier’s mood. In the private sector, Elon Musk has announced Neuralink — a neurotechnology venture that will not only focus on fighting diseases but also on augmenting humans so they can better compete with machines.

The technology is advancing in campuses and government-backed labs around the world, attracting serious funding from established technology players, technology institutes, and top universities. For instance, Professor Newton Howard of Oxford University has produced a functional neural implant prototype by combining some of the brightest minds at MIT, Oxford, and Georgetown, and the resources and technical know-how of Intel and Qualcomm.

All of this begs the question: Is the world ready for this kind of human enhancement, and is it a worthy idea to pursue in the first place? Well, I for one wouldn’t be standing in line waiting for my brain implant, as it would take away too much of what makes me who I am.

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Quiet Since WWII, Japan Begins $44 Billion Re-Militarization to Confront China

ANTIMEDIA 

The days of post-World War II pacifism in Japan are more or less over.

The Japanese government has announced it will bolster its coast guard capabilities to defend disputed islands in the East China Sea. China also claims and regularly patrols these islands. The coast guard budget is expected to reach a record of 210 billion yen (approximately $1.8 billion), adding eight new ships and more than 200 law enforcement officials.

Japan’s government also just approved a record defense budget of 5.1 trillion yen (approximately $44 billion), with a focus on China and North Korea. The budget is set to include six new submarines equipped with improved sensor technology, which is to be used to deter the challenges presented by the Chinese. The increased funds will also go toward an upgraded missile defense system.

Japan has supposedly been investing in a submarine program since the 1950s and analysts consider the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force’s submarine fleet to be one of its core strengths.

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Israel and U.S. are close to a deal on the biggest military aid package ever

Washington Post

 

A senior Israeli official will arrive in Washington next week for a final round of negotiations involving the largest military aid package the United States has ever given any country and that will last more than a decade after President Obama leaves office.

Brig. Gen. Yaakov Nagel, the acting head of Israel’s National Security Council, has been dispatched with instructions to meet with White House officials in hopes of signing an agreement “as soon as possible,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said this week.

That represents a striking about-face for Netanyahu, who angered the Obama administration when he mused during a February meeting with his cabinet that Israel might decide to wait and “reach an agreement with the next administration.”

Nagel’s visit signals that Netanyahu may have concluded that he won’t necessarily get a better deal than the one he can forge with Obama, with whom he has had a visibly testy personal relationship. Both countries are now eager to strike a deal before Obama’s term ends.

The Obama administration has said it is prepared to sign a 10-year “memorandum of understanding” that significantly raises the $3.1 billion a year the United States currently grants Israel under an existing agreement that expires in 2018. In addition, Congress has provided additional money for missile defense.

Over months of secret negotiations that picked up steam late last year, Netanyahu was holding out for as much at $5 billion a year, according to accounts in the Israeli news media. Israelis argued that they need to spend much more on defense in the wake of last year’s Iran nuclear deal, which is freeing up frozen Iranian assets that Israel fears may be used in part to fund Iranian aggression in the region.

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White House Moves To Reauthorize Military Equipment For Police

teleSUR 

 

The Obama White House is set to authorize police agencies to once again acquire military equipment, a move that is sure to be met with heavy criticism from activists seeking greater accountability from police in light of regular police killings of Black men.

 

Reuters reported Thursday that the U.S. government will revisit a 2015 ban on police forces getting riot gear, armored vehicles and other military-grade equipment from the U.S. armed forces.

 

The use of military gear by police agencies was criticized by supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement and other critics of police impunity and brutality as being part of a broader militarization of police, which was seen as a factor in the mistreatment of demonstrators and U.S. residents.

 

In response to the public outcry, the White House issued a ban in May 2015 on the transfer of some equipment from the military to police.

 

However, in light of recent killings of police, President Barack Obama agreed to review each banned item, two police organization directors told Reuters. 

 

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Coup Against Wannabe-Sultan Failed - Beware The Aftermath

Moon of Alabama

 

(Please also read the updated tweets below. There are some very interesting nuggets in there that are not yet reflected in the text.)

Yesterday's short coup attempt (real time MoA) by parts of the military against the wannabe-Sultan of Turkey failed. Some 200 people on both sides were killed, some 1,200 wounded.

The plotters' major mistakes were:

• to not capture Erdogan and the leaders of his political and security organizations,
• to not shut down all means of mass communication, especially the Internet, except those under their strict control,
• to not put out a trusted public face to represent the coup.

Erdogan escaped and could orchestrate the counter to the coup. He could continue to communicate with his security management, foreign politicians and his supporters. 

Without any well known alternative leader the public had only Erdogan to follow.

The amateurish behavior of the coup plotter opens the question of who ran this show. Was this, as some asserted early on, an Erdogan plot to seize more power?

There are three possible motives/perpetrators behind this coup:

• the Islamic movement following the preacher Fetullah Gülen, a former Erdogan ally and now arch-enemy who lives in the U.S. and has CIA relations;
• the old Kemalist secularist movement in the military and deep state;
• the Erdogan AKP movement in a false flag operation to seize more power;

There is no evidence for any of these theses and none of them clearly fits the observed pattern.

The response will be harsh. Edogan will crack down on ANYONE he politically or personally dislikes - completely independent of their involvement in the coup. All political parties, even the mostly Kurdish HDP, spoke out against the coup while it was ongoing. The religious Gülen movement also opposed it. Most of the involved soldiers were told that they were part of an exercise. It will not save any of them from Erdogan's and his supporters' wrath.

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More than 1,500 arrested, 90 dead, 1,150 injured in failed coup attempt against Turkish government

RT

Turkish loyalists report arresting 1,563 soldiers and officers implicated in an overnight coup attempt; 29 colonels and five generals have been sacked. At least 90 people have been killed and 1,154 injured in military action in Istanbul and Ankara.

Pro-government forces have seized control of the top military HQ building, but there are still some groups of rebels resisting, a Turkish official said on Saturday, as cited by Reuters.

The official told the agency 1,563 military personnel were arrested following the coup attempt. But according to Milliyet, a Turkish daily, 1,374 were detained.

General Hulusi Akar, who heads Turkey's armed forces, has been rescued from rebel captivity. He was the most senior military official in their hands.

The rebels reportedly have several helicopter gunships in their disposal, but loyalists have threatened to shoot them down as they downed at least one aircraft carrying out attacks on government buildings.

A faction of the Turkish military attempted to overthrow the government on Friday night, employing tanks and attack helicopters. The conspiracy appears to have failed, however, as they didn't manage to capture any senior government officials and couldn't win wide support from the Turkish military.  

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Robots to replace soldiers in future, says Russian military's tech chief

RT

Future warfare will see sophisticated combat robots fighting on land, in the air, at sea and in outer space, the head of Russia's military hi-tech body has said, adding that the days of conventional soldiers on the battlefield are numbered.  

"I see a greater robotization [of war], in fact, future warfare will involve operators and machines, not soldiers shooting at each other on the battlefield," Lieutenant General Andrey Grigoriev, head of the Advanced Research Foundation (ARF) - viewed as Russia's analogue of DARPA - told RIA Novosti in an interview on Wednesday.

He noted that future warfare will be determined by unmanned combat systems: "It would be powerful robot units fighting on land, in the air, at sea as well as underwater and in outer space."

"They would be integrated into large comprehensive reconnaissance-strike systems," Grigoriev added.

"The soldier would gradually turn into an operator and be removed from the battlefield," he stressed. 

 Read more (with videos)

NATO starts massive war games in Ukraine

Press TV

 

Member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), including forces from the US, have launched a large-scale military exercise in westerns Ukraine.

The war games, dubbed Rapid Trident, kicked off at 9:00 am local time on Monday at the International Peacekeeping and Security Center (IPSC) in Yavoriv in western Ukraine, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said.

At least 2,000 troops from more than 14 NATO member states and their partners in eastern Europe attend the exercises, according to the ministry.

The maneuvers will involve military equipment, including armored vehicles, military helicopters and aircraft.

The first part of the annual military exercise will come to an end on July 8.

Conducted annually, Rapid Trident this year involves Ukraine, the United States, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Georgia, The United Kingdom, Moldova, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden and Turkey.

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Sick hypocrites: Britain 'reviewing' Palestine aid, as U.S. pledges biggest military aid package to Israel ever

Sott.net via RT

Palestinian aid is under review by the British government after it was alleged some of the funds are paying the 'salaries' of terrorists. The probe comes as the US promised to give Israel the "largest military aid package in history."

The Department for International Development (DfID) said it is reviewing its aid package to the Palestinian territories as it considers "how best to support" a two-state solution in the region.

But pro-Israel MPs in the British Parliament have criticized the department for ignoring allegations that UK aid money is falling into the wrong hands.
Speaking to the Jewish Chronicle on Friday, Joan Ryan MP claimed the UK government is effectively funding terrorism.

The Labour Friends of Israel chairwoman said: "This is the department which - even last month - was showing amazing nonchalance in the face of the serious allegations that the Palestinian Authority is deceiving international donors and, in fact, continuing to effectively pay salaries to convicted Palestinian terrorists."

Eric Pickles MP, chair of Conservative Friends of Israel, said he has put pressure on DfID to fund 'peaceful' projects.

"I have asked [the International Development Secretary] if we can focus more funding more on projects that are committed to peace, and less on institutions. She has been very receptive to it."

Laying out the department's official stance, a spokesperson said: "[DFiD] is already undertaking a review of its program in the Occupied Palestinian Territories as part of its Bilateral Aid Review, to consider how it can best support progress towards a negotiated two-state solution."

The British aid review comes as the United States pledged to significantly increase its military assistance to Israel.

Although US National Security Advisor Susan Rice criticized Tel Aviv for its continued expansion into the Occupied Palestinian Territories and for attacks on the Arab population, she went on to pledge the largest aid package in US history.

"Even in these days of belt-tightening, we are prepared to sign the single largest military assistance package with any country in history," Rice said in an interview with US Jewish weekly, Forward, on Monday.

Rice also noted that Israel receives "more than half the US's entire foreign military assistance budget."

Comment: She says it as if it's something to be proud of...

The unfinished aid agreement is expected to provide Israel with almost $40 billion in military assistance beginning in 2019. 

Comment: 1) Prove that any real 'terrorists' benefited from this aid. Palestine is morally and legally entitled to an armed resistance to Israeli military occupation. 2) Even if this is proved, are we really expected to accept that the UK cares? These are the same psychopaths who support terrorists in Syria! The U.S., their ideological ally, is giving $40 billion to a terrorist state: Israel. The hypocrisy is sickening.

Empire on steroids: The expansion of U.S. secret wars in Africa

Justin Yun
Chimes

The secret expansion of U.S. military bases and special operations in Africa has initiated a new and lightweight style of warfare and welcomes the next phase of American military imperialism. Unlike the highly publicized U.S. military "pivot to Asia," the proliferation of drones, special ops, mercenary spies, classified bases, proxy fighters and cyber warfare constitute what the journalist Nick Turse calls a "new light-footprint Obama doctrine" that "seems to be making war an ever more attractive and seemingly easy option."

A New Style of Fighting

On any day, elite U.S. forces conduct covert missions in an estimated 70 to 90 countries. According to Turse, special forces have been sent to an unprecedented 147 countries — 75 percent of the world's nations last year alone. This is a 145 percent increase from the rate of operations conducted under the Bush administration.

Wars conventionally fought by large infantry forces and full-scale invasions of foreign countries have made way for a new style of fighting — one that has become increasingly dependent on special forces, drones and private defense contractors. Because of the confidential nature of special ops, the Pentagon can essentially keep foreign military involvement secret from the American public. The U.S. has always had troops in Africa since the Cold War but the rate of its expansion dangerously indicates a lack of public accountability.

A Naive Claim

The shadow wars in Africa are now fought by members of the U.S. Special Operations Command and JSOC — a clandestine organization that carries out kill/capture missions. JSOC has been called "an almost industrial-scale counterterrorism killing machine" by counterinsurgency advisor John Nagl and many have described it as the president's "private assassination squad." The group reports directly to the White House. It is the military's secret military.

The notion the U.S. would someday pull its troops out of the Middle East is a rather naive claim considering the fact we have nothing short of a permanent war economy. From main operating bases that house thousands of soldiers to single airstrips used by the C.I.A. to taxi their blacked-out turboprops, the U.S. continues to maintain over 800 to 1,000 bases around the world — making us the most expansive military empire in history. Nobody really knows the exact figure — not even the military experts. The late scholar Chalmers Johnson wrote in his book, "The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic" on how the Pentagon and an uncontrollable military-industrial complex have turned the U.S. into "a new kind of military empire — a consumerist Sparta." Chalmers declares, "Another crucial characteristic that distinguished the American empire from empires of the past is that bases are not needed to fight wars but are instead pure manifestations of militarism and imperialism."

Global Instability

Military expansion does not make us safe since it cultivates global instability. The uncontrollable growth into Africa has resulted in the funding and training of proxy armies with atrocious human-rights records and has attracted mercenaries such as Erik Prince — founder of the infamous Blackwater private army hired by the D.O.D to provide security to high-level diplomats during the Iraq war.

With military presence in 53 of 54 of Africa's nations, the American empire has emerged to pick up where the former European colonial powers have left off. 

Chinese and Russian military meet in Beijing to discuss strategic cooperation

Tass

The 18th round of strategic dialogue between the Russian Armed Forces and Chinese People's Liberation Army was held in Beijing today, the Chinese Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.

China was represented by Deputy Chief of the Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission Admiral Sun Jianguo, Russia - by Chief of the Main Operations Department of the Russian General Staff Lieutenant General Sergey Rudskoy.

"The sides exchanged their opinions on international and regional situation in the sphere of security, military reforms, as well as cooperation between the Armed Forces of the two countries, and achieved broad consensus," the Chinese Defense Ministry said.

Sun Jianguo said that cooperation between the defense ministries of China and Russia has been actively developing over the last years. "In order to contribute to development of Russian-Chinese relations of strategic partnership, China wants to constantly uncover the potential of cooperation together with Russia, expand cooperation spheres and deepen strategic trust," the military official.
Rudskoy in turn said that Russia and China are effectively cooperating in all spheres. "The consensus reached during this round of strategic dialogue will leads to gradual increase in the level of cooperation between the Armed Forces of the two countries, which will give a new impetus to development of Russian-Chinese relations in general," he said.

Who’s the aggressor? USA spends over eleven times more on the Military than Russia, even the UK spends more

Uprooted Palestinian's Blog

List by the International Institute for Strategic Studies World Military Balance 2016 (for 2015) ^[3]

 

Top five countries by military expenditure in 2016. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies.[2]

Rank	Country	Spending ($ Bn.)	% of GDP	Per capita ($)
	World total	1,563.0	2.1	216
1	United States	597.5	3.3	1859
2	China	145.8	1.2	106
3	Saudi Arabia	81.8	12.9	2949
4	United Kingdom	56.2	2.0	878
5	Russia	51.6	4.1	362
6	India	47.9	1.8	35

The European Union prepares the ‘solidarity clause’ framework for military use against citizens

Stratrisks 

See also: EU prepares the ground for military use against the citizens

The EU creates a legal framework for Europe-wide deployment of police and military units . At the same time, the EU Commission is working intensively on the creation of a single EU police unit as well as an EU public prosecutor (more here ).
The use of the “European Gendarmerie Force” (EUROGENDFOR) is made ​​possible by the “solidarity clause” as Heise reported. At the unit, headquartered in Vicenza, Italy, all EU Member States are involved, the Gendarmerien, so police forces with military status are used. One of the founding countries of the EUROGENDFOR include Portugal, Spain, Italy, France and the Netherlands. We provide our services to the police unit of the EU, NATO or the UN.
“The ‘solidarity clause’ is redundant, since the EU already has mechanisms for mutual assistance in case of disasters. Secondly, the clause amplifies the course to a militarization of domestic politics, since upon request military can be used in another Member State. 

“On Tuesday, the representatives of the EU Member States in the Council adopted a decision on the so-called ‘solidarity clause’. Were a disaster or a loosely defined crisis to occur, the organs of the European Union would be obliged to assist using all the instruments at their disposal. This includes military resources”, warned Member of the Bundestag Andrej Hunko.

The proposal on ‘arrangements for the implementation by the Union of the Solidarity Clause’ was jointly presented by the Commission and the EU High Representative in 2012. A country can invoke the “solidarity clause” if a crisis “overwhelms its response capacities”. Mention is made of operational, policy and financial instruments and structures.

Andrej Hunko continued:

“The adoption at the General Affairs Council took place in secret: the point was not mentioned on the agenda of  the meeting. The press was not informed. Yet this is one of the most controversial clauses contained in the EU treaties. That is precisely the reason why agreement on the details of the solidarity clause was postponed to a later point at the time of the signature of the Lisbon Treaty.

The ‘solidarity clause’ boosts the role of the two intelligence-service-style EU situation centres. But it also creates the legal framework for deployment of the special police units of the ‘ATLAS network’ being developed by the Commission. From Germany, the GSG 9 is involved; last year this Federal Police Special Forces unit was able to head a large-scale ATLAS exercise encompassing several countries for the first time.

The ‘solidarity clause’ is superfluous, since the EU already has mechanisms for mutual assistance in disaster situations. At the same time, however, the clause strengthens the course towards militarisation of home-affairs policy, since military personnel can be sent to another Member State on request. I am concerned that this is about the home-affairs version of the Article 5 clause on mutual defence: it would apply in situations which ‘may have an adverse impact on people, the environment or property’. Even politically motivated blockades in the areas of energy and transport and general strikes are covered.

The text explicitly refers to crises which originate outside the territory of the Member States. The Left Party parliamentary group rejects this blurring of the lines between internal and external security. Instead of militarisation of home-affairs policy through the deployment of military forces inside other Member States, we need reinforcement of the civilian mechanisms of solidarity within the EU.”

Press release of 24 June 2014 by the General Affairs Council:http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/EN/genaff/143353.pdf