Putin deploys Russia’s most advanced air-defence missiles in Crimea as alarm grows war is imminent


World powers urged Russia and Ukraine to refrain from ratcheting up a confrontation over Crimea as President Vladimir Putin bolstered the disputed peninsula’s military with some of his army’s most advanced air-defence missile systems.
The confrontation coincides with a surge in violence in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, where government troops are fighting rebels who Kiev says are getting cash, weapons and fighters from Russia. The flareup torpedoed plans to revive four-way peace talks at the September Group of 20 meeting in China and raised warnings from analysts of a potential military conflict before Russia’s September parliamentary elections.
Russia deployed S-400 Triumph air defence systems in Crimea, the Moscow-based RIA Novosti news service reported on Friday. Putin may cut diplomatic ties with Ukraine if there’s no other option left, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said, according to Interfax, another news service. The premier said there was a Ukrainian incursion into the territory, which he called a crime that needs to be investigated.






Talk about unusual. On Aug. 10, the U.S. Air Force announced it had sent its B-2 Spirit stealth bombers to join older, non-stealthy B-52 Stratofortresses and B-1 Lancers on Guam.
It’s an extraordinary show of force in the Pacific region, because for the first time ever, America has based all three heavy bomber types on the island at once.
Deborah Lee James, the Air Force secretary, described the deployments as providing a “valuable opportunity for our bomber crews to integrate and train together, as well as with our allies and partners through the region in a variety of missions.”

But James did not elaborate on just how unusual the arrangement actually is, nor did she expand on any deeper possible reasons for basing Spirits, Lancers and Stratofortresses at the same base at same time — all within striking distance of China and North Korea.

On Aug. 10, the B-2s landed for a separate but similar “bomber assurance and deterrence deployment,” or BAAD. We don’t know when the stealth bombers and their crews will return home to their base in Missouri.
Each bomber is considerably different from each other. The sleek B-1 can fly faster than the speed of sound while lugging nearly 40 tons of bombs in three internal weapons bays. The jet has a maximum range of nearly 6,000 miles.
The massive B-52 Stratofortress, however, flies much slower with a slightly smaller bomb load, but can travel almost 3,000 miles farther before needing to land. The B-2 Spirit holds much less ordnance, but the unique flying wing shape and other stealth features makes it virtually invisible to enemy radar.
In July, Beijing sent one of its own H-6K bombers to fly over the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. That month, among a host of other rulings, a U.N. tribunal declared Chinese ships had illegally blocked Philippine fisherman from entering the area.

China’s nominally civilian maritime police force has routinely blocked foreign activities around Scarborough and other small islands to help reinforce Beijing’s claims. Chinese officials have also recently boasted about a slew of new, deadly surface to air and ballistic missiles that could challenge American planes and ships.

But sending three different types of heavy bomber to a single base thousands of miles from home is something only the Pentagon can do. Given recent events, it’s unlikely this impressive show of military power was merely a coincidence.






We have been warning you all for months that something big was happening, but now it looks like we have confirmation. The Chinese Defense Minister, Chang Wanquan, has warned its citizens to prepare for the coming war.

China has vowed to take measures to defy the 12th of July ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration and to protect its sovereignty. It has been reported that in a post-Brexit world, China and Russia will become the world's super powers. 

China's state-run media has been awash with bluster on the subject of their military and sovereignty. 

Wanquan reportedly made the statement while inspecting military installations in China's eastern coastal province of Zhejiang. The Defense Minister said the Chinese public should be educated about national defense issues because the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity are at risk. 

Wanquan also warned of offshore security threats, and the need to acknowledge the gravity of risk to China's national security. He further charged the entire security apparatus of the country, including military, police, together with citizens to prepare for mobilization to defend their national sovereignty and territorial integrity. 

Commentators also believe that China has a strong belief that the United States instigated the Philippines to dispute the South China Sea so that the United States could take advantage and exploit the area for its benefit. 

A war between China and its neighbors also has the dangerous possibility to divide the world. The U.S. will no doubt come to the aid of its allies, and China and Russia have increased military ties which could further complicate the scenario. 







For the second year in a row, Russia has finished hosting the massive International Army Games.
Held in Russia and Kazakhstan, this two-week military competition pitted over 3,000 service members hailing from 19 different countries against each other. With events ranging from air, marine, and field operations, service members were timed and tested in a wide range of warfare scenarios.
Here are several photos from the 2016 International Army Games competition:






Using data from the United States Department of Energy, the International Business Times reported in 2014 that the United States suffers more blackouts than any other developed country in the world.
Unfortunately, not much has been done since then to alleviate the system’s critical vulnerabilities.
In theory, we all understand the wisdom about not putting all our eggs in one basket, as the old-adage goes. Yet the U.S. has done just that with our U.S. power grid. Sadly, this infrastructure is failing, and compared to many other countries, the U.S. is sauntering slowly behind many other more conscientious countries, seemingly unconcerned with its poor showing.

The Grid, by Geography and Geopolitics


According to the United States Department of Energy, the American power grid is made up of three smaller grids, known as interconnections, which transport energy all over the country. The Eastern Interconnection provides electricity to states to the east of the Rocky Mountains, while the Western interconnection serves the Rocky Mountain states and those that border the Pacific Ocean.

To give it to you straight, our national electrical grid works as an interdependent network. This means that the failure of any one part would trigger the borrowing of energy from other areas. Whichever grid attempts to carry the extra load would likely be overtaxed, as the grid is already taxed to near max levels during peak hot or cold seasons.

The aftermath of a single grid going down could leave millions of residents without power for days, weeks or longer depending on the scope of the failure.

According to Jon Wellinghoff, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, in an interview with USA Today, "You have a very vulnerable system that will continue to be vulnerable until we figure out a way to break it out into more distributed systems."

The security of the power grid, which is a separate issue from the reliability of the power grid, is a whole other issue that concerns itself with hypothetical one-off scenarios—albeit terrible one-off scenarios. But at least there’s a chance that those one-off scenarios, such as a cyber-attack on the grid or some terrorist activity, would not come to fruition. A chance, at least.
What we are certain of, is that severe weather will continue to stress and threaten our power grid. And unless something changes, ultimately, it will fail. So when we talk about reliability, we’re talking about “when” and “for how long” scenarios, not “what if”.
The how-long factor plays a huge role into how bad is “bad”; not because of the events that one knows will follow, which includes mass food spoilage, deaths due to overheating in the hot summer months, deaths due to freezing in the cold regions, and the halting of everything we take for granted these days—airlines, internet and most other forms of communication.

All that sounds pretty bleak, but when you throw into the mix the mania and hysteria that would ensue shortly after such catastrophic events, it will be so much worse. 

In the context of blackouts, we saw this in 1977, when a lightning strike in New York on a Hudson River substation tripped two circuit breakers, causing power to be diverted in order to protect the circuit. The chain of events that followed ended in an entire blackout for the area, which led to mass rioting, over 1000 deliberately set fires, the looting of 1600 stores, and the eventual arrest of 4,500 perpetrators and the injury of 550 officers, according to some estimates. The power was only out for 25 hours, and in one area.