Russians in Latin America – USA Gov Policy

The lack of appropriate coverage on key national security issues facing the U.S. remains a significant problem. This failure is a reflection of the partisanship of most of the major outlets. That negligence extends to military activity within the Americas.

The vast and growing threats from Russia, which now is the world’s most significant nuclear power (it has greater numbers and more modern equipment) China (which already has more submarines than the U.S. and by 2020 will have a larger navy) and Iran, with its arsenal of missiles and budding nuclear program, are magnified by the increasingly intimate relationship between those nations, which form an axis that is now the world’s most powerful military grouping. The danger is being brought close to the American homeland.

This is a roundup of recent dramatic developments that have not received adequate attention:

The Free Beacon disclosed that Moscow is constructing an electronic intelligence gathering facility in Nicaragua. Putin has also sold 50 T-72 tanks to the Central American nation. This is another indication of the dramatic failure of the Obama Administration’s establishing diplomatic relations with the Castro regime, which, bizarrely enough, came just a month after Moscow resumed its naval presence on the island nation so close to the U.S. shore.

The general press has barely mentioned the dangerous and inflammatory move, just as they have failed to discuss at any length Russia’s nuclear patrols off U.S. coastlines, its military to military relations with Venezuela or its large-scale militarization of the Arctic. The socialist governments of Nicaragua and Venezuela have close ties to Cuba.

There are legitimate questions why Nicaragua would want tanks. There are no threats facing the nation, and the military capabilityof its neighbors are close to nonexistent.

The U.S. Department of Defense notes that the presence of terrorist groups, barely ever mentioned in major media outlets, are also a key threat in Latin America. U.S. Southern Command commander Navy Adm. Kurt W. Tidd notes “there is longstanding concern in the region about organizations like Hezbollah — a Shiite Islamist militant group.”
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Paul Coyer, writing in Forbes, China’s growing military presence in the region … is serving to undermine, aided by Washington’s neglect, the United States’ strategic position in its own Hemisphere… Illustrating the anti-American tenor of Chinese engagement in the defense arena is the fact that sales of Chinese military hardware have entered the region mostly through states that share an anti-American foreign policy orientation, particularly the “ALBA” states (Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América, or “Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America”, founded by Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez with the aim of countering American influence in Latin America). Chinese resources to these states have allowed such virulently anti-American regimes as Venezuela’s to invite Iranian Quds forces to Latin America, and have indirectly enabled them to give basing rights to Russia, whose goal in gaining such rights is to challenge the United States in the Western Hemisphere…”

The Heritage Foundation’s Justin Johnson, in an exclusive interview on the Vernuccio/Novak Report, expressed deep concern over the 25% cut in the defense budget during the Obama Administration. (Defense spending accounts for about 16% of the overall federal budget.) He has noted that “The U.S. military seems to be breaking. Senior military leaders have made dire statements before Congress, and story after story is revealing the potentially deadly challenges facing our men and women in uniform.” He provided six examples of desperate needs:

The Marine Corps is pulling parts off of museum planes to keep their F-18s flying. Even with that drastic action, only about 30 percent of their F-18s are ready to fly. Not only that, but instead of getting 25 or 30 hours a month in the cockpit, Marine Corps pilots are getting as little as four hours per month of flying time.
Only one-third of Army brigadesare ready for combat. The Army has now fallen to the smallest level since before World War II, while the top Army general says that the Army would face “high military risk” if it were to fight a serious war.
The Air Force is cannibalizing parts from some F-16’sto keep other F-16’s flying and is pulling parts off museum planes to keep their B-1 bombers flying. And half of Air Force squadrons are not prepared for serious combat.
The Navy keeps extending deploymentsof its ships, but still doesn’t have enough to meet demand. While the Navy needs about 350 ships, today it only has 273
Serious crashes of Marine Corps planes and helicopters are nearly double the 10-year average.
The Air Force’s B-52 bombers are an average of 53 years old.

Quick Analysis

Part 3: AMERICA’S STRATEGIC POSTURE

We conclude our summary of the urgent recommendation of the Congressional Committee on the nation’s Strategic Posture NON-NUCLEAR CAPABILITIES The Commission recommends: The United States urgently deploy a more resilient space architecture and adopt a strategy that includes both offensive and defensive elements to ensure U.S. access to and operations in space. The United States and its Allies take steps to ensure they are at the cutting edge of emerging technologies – such as big data analytics, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence (AI) – to avoid strategic surprise and potentially enhance the U.S. strategic posture. The United States prioritize funding and accelerate long-range non-nuclear precision strike programs to meet the operational need and in greater quantities than currently planned. x America’s Strategic Posture The United States develop and field homeland IAMD that can deter and defeat coercive attacks by Russia and China, and determine the capabilities needed to stay ahead of the North Korean threat.4 The Secretary of Defense direct research, development, test and evaluation into advanced IAMD capabilities leveraging all domains, including land, sea, air, and space. These activities should focus on sensor architectures, integrated command and control, interceptors, cruise and hypersonic missile defenses, and area or point defenses. The DOD should urgently pursue deployment of any capabilities that prove feasible. The Secretary of Defense and the Military Departments transfer operations and sustainment responsibility for missile defense to the appropriate Military Departments by 1 October 2024. This will allow the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) to focus on research, development, prototyping and testing. ALLIES AND PARTNERS The Commission believes it is in the U.S. national interest to maintain, strengthen, and when appropriate, expand its network of alliances and partnerships. These relationships strengthen American security by deterring aggression regionally, before it can reach the U.S. homeland, while also enabling U.S. economic prosperity through access to international markets. Withdrawing from U.S. alliances and partnerships would directly benefit adversaries, invite aggression that the United States might later have to reverse, and ultimately decrease American, allied, and partner security and economic prosperity. Further, the Commission believes that our defense and the defense of the current international order is strengthened when Allies can directly contribute to the broader strategic posture, and the United States should seek to incorporate those contributions as much as possible. The Executive branch should recognize that any major change to U.S. strategic posture, policies, or capabilities will have great effect on Allies’ perceptions and their deterrence and assurance requirements. As a result, any changes should be predicated on meaningful consultations. RISK REDUCTION The Commission believes it is of paramount importance for the United States to work to reduce strategic risks. This involves activities and programs across the U.S. government, including in nonproliferation and arms control, as well as maintaining strong, viable, and resilient military forces. The Commission recommends that a strategy to address the two-nuclear-peer threat environment be a prerequisite for developing U.S. nuclear arms control limits for the 2027-2035 timeframe. The Commission recommends that once a strategy and its related force requirements are established, the U.S. government determine whether and how nuclear arms control limits continue to enhance U.S. security. The Commission recommends that the United States continue to explore nuclear arms control opportunities and conduct research into potential verification technologies in order to support or enable future negotiations in the U.S. national interest that seek to limit all nuclear weapon types, should the geopolitical environment change. Where formal nuclear arms control agreements are not possible, the Commission recommends pursuing nuclear risk reduction measures to increase predictability and reduce uncertainty and the chances for misperception and miscalculation. The 2009 Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States reported that the United States was at “a moment of opportunity, . . .but also a moment of urgency” – because the security environment had improved and the threat of nuclear proliferation was the principal concern. Since 2009, the security environment has dramatically worsened and new existential threats have emerged. This Commission concludes that the United States now faces a highstakes challenge that requires urgent action. Nevertheless, the Commission has not seen the U.S. government demonstrate the urgency and creativity required to meet the challenge. Nothing other than synchronized steps taken by the Executive and Legislative Branches will craft the strategy and build the posture the nation requires. The challenges are unmistakable; the problems are urgent; the steps are needed now. Photo: An Air Force Global Strike Command unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile launches during a test at Vandenberg Space Force Base (DoD)