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Tillerson meets with Putin amid deepening tensions over U.S. missile strikes in Syria

MOSCOW — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson held his first directs talks with Russia’s president on Wednesday amid deepening tensions after U.S. missile strikes in Syria and Washington’s demands that Moscow abandon support for its main Middle East ally.

“I will be frank, we have a lot of questions regarding very ambiguous and contradictory ideas on the international agenda in Washington,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after shaking hands with Tillerson and sitting down at a conference table to welcome him to Moscow, a rite typically marked by pleasantries. “And I’d like to say, apart from words, we saw some very alarming actions regarding the unlawful attack in Syria.”

The "enemies" will have fictional names, but when hundreds of US military personnel around the globe log on to their computers later this summer for a highly classified war game, it will be clear what a major focus of the scenarios will be -- how the US should respond to aggressive action and unexpected moves by China and Russia

Several defense officials tell CNN that the war game is a top priority for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, who will lead the exercise. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will be briefed as it plays out.

The war game is designed to equip the US military's top leaders to deal with a fictional global crisis erupting on multiple fronts and players will have to deal with constantly changing scenarios and compete for military assets like aircraft carriers and bombers.They will take place at a crucial time for the Pentagon just months into Joe Biden's presidency.

The new missile systems China displayed in its national day parade last month will add to “global anxiety” about its rising military power and Beijing needs to explain itself to the world, Japan’s defence minister has warned

His comments highlight Tokyo’s delicate position as it seeks to maintain its security against China’s growing military might, while avoiding becoming a proxy for a US confrontation with Beijing.

The hardware was unveiled amid rising tensions in the region, from ballistic missile tests by North Korea to the US withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia. The treaty banned land-based missiles with ranges of between 500km and 5,500km and the US is now keen to deploy such missiles in Asia. Some experts fear that could spark an arms race with China, which was not party to the INF treaty.

Iran and the United States have recently engaged in a spiraling escalation of threats and warnings

On Saturday, Iran’s Parliament placed largely symbolic sanctions on 51 Americans, many of them prominent political and military officials, for “terrorism” and “human rights violations,” in retaliation for the U.S. assassination of Iran’s top commander, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, two years ago.

Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, then warned that Iran would “face severe consequences” if it attacked any Americans, including any of the 51 people hit with the sanctions.

Russia has sent advanced antiship cruise missiles to Syria, a move that illustrates the depth of its support for the Syrian government

Secretary of State John Kerry has repeatedly said that it is the United States’ hope to change Mr. Assad’s “calculations”

“I think we’ve made it crystal clear we would prefer that Russia was not supplying assistance

Uganda Halts Military Cooperation With North Korea

Mr. Museveni agreed to comply with United Nations sanctions aimed at limiting North Korea’s capacity to earn foreign cash for its banned nuclear and missile program.

“We are disengaging the cooperation we are having with North Korea, as a result of U.N. sanctions,”

Russia has focused its earliest operations on the insurgent coalition known as the Army of Conquest, or Jaish al-Fatah, rather than on the Islamic State, according to the official from the pro-government alliance

Wednesday was the first time since the spring that the government’s forces had moved “from defense to offense,” the official said.

While Russian officials said the missiles launched from the Caspian Sea had targeted the Islamic State, also called ISIS or ISIL, Western officials said the great majority of the attacks had been directed against rebel groups fighting Mr. Assad. There were no reports of large explosions in Islamic State-held areas to the east, making it less likely that the cruise missiles had hit the group’s strongholds.

he top American military commander in South Korea said on Friday that he believed North Korea had most likely completed its yearslong quest to shrink a nuclear weapon to a size that could fit atop a ballistic missile

For years, American intelligence agencies have been scouring the evidence — from satellite photographs, human spies, intercepted calls and computer transmissions, and the tracking of nuclear suppliers — in an effort to assess when the North would be capable of marrying its nuclear and missile programs.

But even if General Scaparrotti is correct, it does not mean that the North is ready to threaten the United States with a nuclear-tipped missile

U.N. Toughens Sanctions on North Korea in Response to Its Nuclear Program

Exasperated with North Korea’s defiant testing of nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles, the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously on Wednesday to severely toughen its penalties against the isolated country.

The 15-member Council approved a draft resolution, negotiated for weeks by American and Chinese officials, that called for inspecting all cargo going in and out of the country, banning all weapons trade and expanding the list of individuals facing sanctions.

China to increase defence spending by '7-8%' in 2016 - official

China’s budget will rise to around around 980bn yuan ($150bn) as the Beijing regime increases its military heft and asserts its territorial claims in the South China Sea, raising tensions with its neighbours and with Washington.

“China’s military budget will continue to grow this year but the margin will be lower than last year and the previous years,” said Fu Ying, spokeswoman for the national people’s congress (NPC), the Communist-controlled parliament.

What if JFK had lost? 5 things that might be different

If just a few thousand votes in a few key states had gone the other way that day, you could argue that Cuba might now be our 51st state.

By the time it was over, Kennedy had won and Nixon's camp was quietly accusing the other side of dirty tricks. The election was about much more than Washington bragging rights.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered his military to be ready to launch nuclear strikes at any time, state media reported Friday, an escalation in rhetoric targeting Seoul and Washington that may not reflect the country's actual nuclear capacity.

In North Korea's first official response to the U.N.'s recent adoption of harsh sanctions over its recent nuclear test and long-range rocket launch, the North also warned Friday it will bolster its nuclear arsenal and make unspecified "strong and merciless physical" measures. A government statement called the U.N. sanctions the "most heinous international criminal act" aimed at isolating and stifling the country.

Most experts say it's highly unlikely that North Korea currently has a reliable intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching U.S. shores, let alone the ability to arm it with a miniaturized nuclear warhead. But North Korea can probably place nuclear warheads on its shorter-range Scuds and its 1,300-kilometer-range Rodong missiles, which can strike targets in South Korea and Japan, said Lee Choon Geun, an analyst from South Korea's state-funded Science and Technology Policy Institute. Other analysts, however, question this.

The commander of American forces in South Korea warned Wednesday that a conflict with North Korea could resemble the scale of World War II.

Describing what the confrontation might look like, Gen. Curtis Scaparrrotti said that, "Given the size of the forces and the the weaponry involved, this would be more akin to the Korean War and World War II -- very complex, probably high casualty."

The U.S. military suffered 405,399 fatalities in World War II and 36,574 during the Korean War of 1950-1953. Korean casualties were in the millions.

The US has imposed fresh sanctions on Iranian companies and individuals over a recent ballistic missile test.

The move came after international nuclear sanctions on Iran were lifted as part of a deal hailed by President Barack Obama on Sunday as "smart".

They were triggered by Iran conducting a precision-guided ballistic missile test capable of delivering a nuclear warhead last October, violating a United Nations ban.

On Thursday, Chung Eui Yong, South Korea’s national security advisor, told a stunned group of journalists at the White House that President Donald Trump had accepted an invitation to meet with Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea. Like so many other decisions in this White House, this one felt chaotic. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, for example, seemed to learn of the decision to hold the meeting, which is planned to occur by May, only after it was made. (He and other administration officials have since downplayed its significance, though Trump on Friday night tweeted: “The deal with North Korea is very much in the making.”) And yet: While one may wish that Trump acted less impulsively, a Trump-Kim summit is a good idea, one that may solve the problem of a truculent North Korea.

It’s also worth remembering that when it comes to North Korea, nukes are hardly the only danger. Even if Pyongyang relinquished its entire nuclear arsenal, it would still possess a large stockpile of chemical and biological weapons, and could decimate Seoul, South Korea’s capital, with its conventional weaponry. The real problem is not North Korea’s nuclear arms, but its potential willingness to use them, along with the rest of its weapons, in a way that harms U.S. interests.

The reasonable best-case scenario for North Korea is that the Kim regime focuses almost exclusively on staying in power and delivering economic growth to its citizens rather than threatening the United States or its neighbors. (Think something like Vietnam after its 1980s economic liberalization—but with nuclear weapons.) Actually pushing for regime change is risky. A coup could replace Kim with a benevolent dictator who prepares the country for elections and reunification with the South under Seoul—or with a general who decides that launching nuclear weapons at the United States, or selling them to a group like the Islamic State, serves Pyongyang’s interests.

Russia says it has successfully test-launched a hypersonic missile, one of a range of nuclear-capable weapons announced by President Vladimir Putin earlier this month.The country's defence ministry released video footage showing the missile detaching from a fighter jet and leaving a fiery trail behind it.

The Kinzhal is said to travel at 10 times the speed of sound and have a range of 2,000km (1,200 miles).