The prophecy is more than seeing into the future. For the prophecy sees without the element of time. For the prophecy sees things as they were, as they are, and as they always shall be.
Is It Time For Japan To Go Nuclear?
By CHARLES V. PEÑA • September 26, 2017
In the wake of North Korea’s most recently reported nuclear test, which took many by surprise—because the yield was much larger than most analysts expected and because North Korea claimed it was a hydrogen bomb or a thermonuclear weapon that is the same type that the U.S. and Russia have—Secretary of Defense James Mattis assured Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera that “the United States’ commitment to defend Japan, including the U.S. extended deterrence commitment, remains ironclad.” To be sure, this is reassuring to Japan. But why does Japan need such a commitment? And, more importantly, why doesn’t Japan have an ironclad commitment to defend itself? Certainly, Japan would be better off if it didn’t have to depend on the U.S. And America would be better off with a strong, capable ally. In the aftermath of World War II, there were good reasons for the U.S. to assume the mantle of defending Japan. First and foremost, the U.S. wanted to prevent Japan from becoming an aggressive military power—and the Japanese agreed—as a means to avoid a replay of war in the Pacific. Second, the reality was the Japan had been ravaged by war and—much like America’s European allies—needed the U.S. to provide stability and act as a counterweight to the Soviet Union and, to a lesser degree, China, as it rebuilt its economy.
But that was then and this is now.
Today, Japan is the third largest economy in the world (only the U.S. and China are bigger) with a gross domestic product (GDP) of $4.9 trillion. The Central Intelligence Agency estimates North Korea’s economy to be about $40 billion, which would place it in between Tunisia and Jordan—ranked 86th and 87th, respectively—on the World Bank’s list (the World Bank does not include North Korea on its list because it cannot confirm the country’s GDP). But with an economy more than 100 times larger than North Korea’s, Japan can easily afford to pay for its own defense—and it’s long past time for our wealthy ally to shoulder the responsibility of its own national security.
As a move in that direction, the Japanese Ministry of Defense recently requested its largest budget ever for fiscal year 2018—$48 billion, which is more than North Korea’s total economy. North Korea’s defense spending is believed to be about $10 billion, which is somewhere between 20 and 25 percent of its GDP. Just as Japan’s economy eclipses North Korea, so does its defense spending—by more than 4-to-1.
Put simply, if a rich country like Japan cannot defend itself against a very poor country like North Korea, there is something very wrong. Especially when Japan’s Self Defense Forces (SDF) are considered one of the best militaries in the world. According to John T. Kuehn, a professor of military history at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, “Pilot for pilot, ship for ship, Japan can stand toe to toe with anybody.”
What Japan is most worried about, of course, is the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Their recent defense budget request reflects that concern, with tens of billions of yen (more than $600 million) for Standard Missile-3 missiles to intercept ballistic missiles in space and Patriot PAC-3 missiles to intercept warheads in their terminal phase inside the atmosphere. At least the Japanese have a willingness to pay for such capabilities, rather than expecting that they should be given to them courtesy of U.S. taxpayers. But even with missile defense, Japan continues to rely on extended deterrence via the U.S. nuclear umbrella to deter North Korea’s nuclear weapons. But whether extended deterrence will work is unclear. Is Kim Jong-un credibly convinced that the United States is prepared to risk Los Angeles for Tokyo? Does the Japanese government believe the U.S. would do so? And, most important, is that a price Americans should pay for a rich ally such as Japan?
Just as Japan is considering amending its constitution to explicitly allow for armed forces and avoid any contradiction between the constitution and Japan’s SDF (Article 9 states that “land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained”), perhaps it is also time to consider whether the best way for Japan to deter North Korea’s nuclear capability is with its own such capability—because the reality is that the only way to deter nukes is with nukes.
While we rightly remain concerned about nuclear proliferation, what is worse: A country like North Korea with a nuclear monopoly able to threaten its neighbors and hold them hostage? Or allowing Japan—a democratic U.S. ally—to have its own nuclear deterrent to offset Pyongyang rather than risking Los Angeles or Seattle to save Tokyo? Nonproliferation advocates would be aghast about the prospect of more countries with nuclear weapons, but Japan as an effective nuclear counterbalance to North Korea has some precedent. Both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons and have managed not to vaporize each other. There is some evidence that nuclear weapons have actually had a stabilizing effect on Indian-Pakistani relations, which runs counter to nonproliferation expectations. For example, does the fact that both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons prevent violence related to the Kashmir dispute from erupting into war between the two countries?
And the reality is that although Japan is a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which prohibits it from having nuclear weapons, it has a “bomb in the basement,” with de facto capability to build nuclear weapons since the 1980s when it decided to embark on a nuclear energy program with a plutonium breeder reactor and a uranium enrichment plant. Building an actual nuclear deterrent would not be a huge leap.
The issue isn’t whether Japan should have nuclear weapons or not. The issue is whether Japan should take primary responsibility for itself. If it doesn’t, then the U.S. will forever need to provide an ironclad commitment to defend an ally who is more than capable of defending itself.
Charles V. Peña is a senior fellow with Defense Priorities. He has more than twenty-five years of experience as a policy and program analyst and senior manager, supporting both the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security. Peña is the former director of defense-policy studies at the Cato Institute and author of Winning the Un-War: A New Strategy for the War on Terrorism.
Les Propheties
(Century 1 Quatrain 27)
Michel de Nostredame Earth-shaking fire from the center of the earth.Will cause the towers around the New City
to shake,Two great rocks for a long time will make war, And then
Arethusa will color a new river red.(And then areth USA will color a new
river red.) Earth-shaking fire from the center of the earth.Will cause
the towers around the New City to shake,Two great rocks for a long time will make war
There is recent scientific evidence from drill core sampling in Manhattan, that the southern peninsula is overlapped by several tectonic plates.
Drill core sampling has been taken from regions south of Canal Street
including the Trade Towers’ site. Of particular concern is that similar
core samples have been found across the East River in Brooklyn. There
are also multiple fault lines along Manhattan correlating with north-northwest and northwest trending neo-tectonic activity. And as recently as January and October of 2001, New York City has sustained earthquakes along these plates. For
there are “two great rocks” or tectonic plates that shear across
Manhattan in a northwestern pattern. And these plates “for a longtime
will make war”, for they have been shearing against one other for
millions of years. And on January 3 of 2010, when they makewar with each
other one last time, the sixth seal shall be opened, and all will know
that the end is near. And then Arethusa will color a new river red.
Arethusa is a Greek mythological figure, a beautiful huntress and
afollower of the goddess Artemis. And like Artemis, Arethusa would have
nothing to do with me; rather she loved to run and hunt in the forest.
But one day after an exhausting hunt, she came to a clear crystal stream
and went in it to take a swim. She felt something from beneath her, and
frightened she scampered out of the water. A voice came from the water,
“Why are you leaving fair maiden?” She ran into the forest to escape,
for the voice was from Alpheus, the god of the river. For he had fallen
in love with her and became a human to give chase after her. Arethusa in
exhaustion called out to Artemis for help, and the goddess hid her by
changing her into a spring.But not into an ordinary spring, but an
underground channel that traveled under the ocean from Greece to Sicily.
But Alpheus being the god of the river, converted back into water and
plunged downthe same channel after Arethusa. And thus Arethusa was
captured by Artemis, and their waters would mingle together forever. And
of great concern is that core samples found in train tunnels beneath
the Hudson River are identical to those taken from southern Manhattan. Furthermore, several fault lines from the 2001 earthquakes were discovered in the Queen’s Tunnel Complex, NYC Water Tunnel #3. And a few years ago, a map of Manhattan
drawn up in 1874 was discovered, showing a maze of underground
waterways and lakes. For Manhattan was once a marshland and labyrinth of
underground streams. Thus when the sixth seal is broken, the subways of the New City shall
be flooded be Arethusa:the waters from the underground streams and the
waters from the sea. And Arethusa shall be broken into two. And then
Arethusa will color a new river red. And then areth USA will color a new river red.
For Arethusa broken into two is areth USA. For areth (αρετη) is the
Greek word for values. But the values of the USA are not based on
morality, but on materialism and on wealth. Thus when the sixth seal is
opened, Wall Street and our economy shall crash and “arethUSA”, the
values of our economy shall fall “into the red.” “Then the kings of the
earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong
and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the
rocks of the mountains; and they said to the mountains and to the rocks,
‘Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the
throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath
has come, and who is able to stand?’” (Revelation 6:15-17)
This is the way a nuclear war begins.
Simulations of a war on the Korean peninsula usually start with a relatively minor incident at the demilitarized zone between South Korea and its hostile northern neighbor, or a provocation that develops into a conventional war and then escalates.
President Trump’s threatening posture toward North Korea — most recently exhibited at the United Nations, where he warned that the U.S. could “totally destroy” the country — has prompted military strategists to examine what would actually happen if a war broke out. The scenarios are a sobering corrective to the notion that North Korea’s nuclear capacity could be taken out in a single strike, or that the regime would prove as fragile as that of Saddam Hussein in Iraq or Moammar Kadafi in Libya.
“Too many Americans have the view that it would be like the invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan, or like combat operations in Libya or Syria, but it wouldn’t remotely resemble that,’’ said Rob Givens, a retired Air Force brigadier general who spent four years stationed on the Korean peninsula.
And that is before the North Koreans turn to nuclear weapons. “There is only one way that this war ends,” Givens said. “With North Korea’s defeat — but at what cost?”
James Stavridis, a retired Navy admiral and dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, said the horrific war many have long feared with North Korea is a distinct possibility. He puts the chances of conventional conflict with North Korea at 50-50 and the chances of nuclear war at 10%.
“We are closer to a nuclear exchange than we have been at any time in the world's history with the single exception of the Cuban missile crisis,’’ Stavridis said.
The conflict that Stavridis envisions might start with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un launching a missile that lands on or near Guam.
The United States then moves aircraft carrier strike groups within range of the peninsula and retaliates with an airstrike on a coastal launch facility, perhaps using a Tomahawk cruise missile — similar to the attack the U.S. launched to punish Syria for its use of chemical weapons.
The strike is intended as a message, not an invitation to all-out war. But Kim, unlike Syria’s Bashar Assad, is unlikely to sit idly by.
“He has to react. He knows that if there is a military strike and he does nothing about it, they’ve called his bluff and the game is all over for him,’’ said Sue Mi Terry, a former CIA analyst on North Korea.
North Korea might respond by lobbing a few artillery shells toward the 35,000 U.S. troops currently stationed in South Korea.
North Korea has approximately 11,000 conventional artillery pieces dug into the mountains north of the demilitarized zone. Although much of the equipment dates from the Soviet era, it is in excellent working order and well-protected from drone strikes and airstrikes because it is designed to be rolled in and out from tunnels in the mountains.
The United States would try to take out the artillery with drones and airstrikes, but that would take days, in which time the North Koreans would probably launch a punishing barrage aimed at Seoul and its population of 25 million.
As the war escalates, the North Koreans would likely bomb the bridges across Seoul’s Han River to make it more difficult for civilians to flee, use special forces and infiltrators to attack key facilities and personnel in South Korea, and launch short-range missiles against South Korean and U.S. military bases.
The Pentagon has estimated the potential number of dead in South Korea at 20,000 each day, Givens said. And that is before the North Koreans turn to nuclear weapons.
Although North Korea has successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile and conducted six nuclear tests, the technologies have not yet been married together. That means that though the West Coast of the U.S. now appears to be within range of North Korea’s missiles, it is unlikely that Pyongyang could credibly target the mainland United States with a fully functioning nuclear weapon at this stage.
On the other hand, a nuclear device could be smuggled into a container port or dropped from an airplane, perhaps near one of the U.S. bases in Asia.
“In an all-out conquest for regime survival, they will come after the United States. They are not going to win, but they will try — I guarantee that,’’ Givens said.
The paradox with North Korea is that its weakness is what makes it so dangerous — and why it is difficult to make comparisons with the Cold War period, when fears of mutually assured destruction deterred war with the Soviet Union.
If Kim thinks his regime is collapsing, many of those who have long studied the inscrutable leader believe, he would be inclined to reach for the nuclear option in order to take down everyone else with him — a last lash of the dragon’s tail.
“The North Koreans are in a weak position. They can’t sustain a protracted conventional war. They would have to reach for their weapons of mass destruction early on,’’ said Daniel Pinkston, a former military translator who now teaches defense strategy in South Korea.
The very notion of trying to take out North Korea’s nuclear weapons, he added, “has a high likelihood that you are going to unleash the very thing that you are trying to prevent.’’ Kim Jong Il, father of the current leader, is widely reported to have said, “I would destroy the world or take the world with me before accepting defeat on the battlefield.”
The oft-cited statistics about North Korea’s military are formidable: 1.2 million soldiers in the fourth-largest ground army in the world, among them more than 100,000 special forces trained to infiltrate South Korea. Although its military hardware dates back to the Soviet era, North Korea has more tanks than the United States (3,500 compared with 2,381) and more artillery pieces than China. Its nuclear fissile material is enough for least 12 nuclear weapons, possibly as many as 60, depending on their size. (According to the Arms Control Assn., the U.S. has 1,411 strategic nuclear warheads.)
“The North Korean army is still inferior in every aspect of their operations, but they have massive artillery and missile capability, very large special forces and covert operations and submarines,’’ said Anthony Cordesman of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies and author of a study of the military balance in Asia.
No doubt, a replay of the Korean War in the 21st century would be quicker than the 1950-to-1953 Korean War, a slog through snow-choked mountains that killed nearly 2 million people and left the demarcation line between North and South Korea essentially in the same place where it had started.
But despite the mechanized, high-technology weapons deployed in modern-day warfare, a new Korean War could be as drawn-out and messy as the earlier one.
“A war today would certainly involve a lot of technology, more precise and lethal systems than the last war, but you need to be very, very careful or you could be fighting in precisely those same mountains,’’ Cordesman said.
One of the unpredictable factors charting the course of a new Korean War is whether China would enter the war to save its communist ally.
The Global Times, a newspaper that often expresses Chinese government views, editorialized last month that China would not help North Korea if the U.S. retaliated against a North Korean missile attack. However, it also warned that “if the U.S. and South Korea carry out strikes and try to overthrow the North Korean regime and change the political pattern of the Korean peninsula, China will prevent them from doing so.”
Most military strategists don’t expect the current Chinese government under Xi Jinping to send its troops cross the Yalu River as Mao Tse-tung did in 1950. But Beijing could conduct airstrikes to prop up the government in Pyongyang, in much the way that Russia has come to the aid of Syria’s Assad. The Chinese also might intervene to call for a peace deal that would end up keeping Kim in power.
The aftermath of a new Korean War, even a conventional war, could be as messy as the conflict itself.
Removal of Kim could leave the country with a power vacuum and no one clearly in charge. “You might have a legitimacy competition in North Korea where different actions are backed by different parties,’’ said Scott Snyder of the Council on Foreign Relations. Although North Korea has an ethnically homogenous population — no rival ethnic factions competing for dominance — it has often been torn by regional divisions and could easily disintegrate in the way that countries such as Iraq and Libya did after the fall of dictators.
“I would not rule out the possibility that North Korea’s future could look a lot like Syria,’’ Snyder said. “North Korea could become a resource-consuming quagmire of many, many years.”
Iran Regime Confesses to Exporting Terrorism
Iran Focus
London, 25 Sep - Although it was common knowledge for some time now, a ranking member of the Iranian Regime has confessed that they exported terrorism across the Middle East and Africa.
Mullah Kazem Sediqi, the Friday prayer leader in Tehran, said on September 22: "We conducted a revolution in Iran, but today we are defending in Syria; today our reputation is heard all over Africa, an altar is set up in Nigeria." He also confessed that the theocratic regime’s soft occupation of Iraq has resulted in far-reaching influence over the fellow nation’s political, military and security organs and praised Iran’s use of terror cells like Hezbollah.
Sediqi said: "Today, is Iraq our neighbour? No, it's ourselves. Today, Iraq’s Hashd al-Sha'bi and the Iraqi government are fighting alongside us. Lebanese Hezbollah is one of the miracles of our revolution ... our Islam [read extremism and fundamentalism] goes to bring the world under the flag of the Velayat-e fagiqh (Supreme Leader)!”
However, it was not only Sediqi that saw fit to brag about the Regime’s control over other countries.
Hassan Rouhani, president of the Iranian Regime, said on the same day: "Whether you want or not, we shall defend the oppressed people of Yemen, Syria and Palestine, and we will strengthen our military and defence capabilities to the extent necessary."
While last week, Rauf Sheibani, a former Iranian ambassador to Syria, described the Regime’s export of terrorism as "resistance".
Sheibani said: "The Basiji volunteers from all over the world have been rushing into Syria in order to confront the global campaign against the axis of resistance, and they needed a solid military organization. The role of Iran and our military commanders who served as advisers in Syria was to mobilize, lead and direct these volunteer forces ... Several nationalities in the form of a military body, including Afghan, Iraqi, Pakistani, African, Hindi, and European."
It is hard to imagine how propping up the violent Bashar Assad dictatorship against the legitimate democratic opposition could be considered resistance, but then the Regime is doing the same thing to their own people, so it is no wonder they see Assad as a kindred spirit.
While on September 13, Mullah Ali Saeedi, the representative of Khamenei in the Revolutionary Guards, made a speech defending the regime's interference in the Middle East after public disgust became apparent.
He said: "Today, Iraq and Syria serve Islam (read religious fascism). Sometimes we say what is our business regarding Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon... we have a responsibility in the world, and we are the one to create the ground for the globalization of Islam."
Last month, Mullah Ahmad Alam ol-Hoda, a member of the Assembly of Experts, Friday preacher and a representative of Khamenei in Mashhad, celebrated the Regime’s takeover of other nation states.
He said: "Today, it is not like the desert of Iraq, Syria and the Mediterranean Sea is a place outside this country and do not belong to it; Islam (read the borders of the mullahs’ regime) has been formed there.”
So, these high-ranking officials in the Iranian Regime have confessed that they seek control over the Middle East (and in many cases already have it) and that they will do whatever they need to achieve it; warmongering, terrorism, supporting dictators.
This is why the Iranian Regime must be evicted from the Middle East before they can do more damage to the region and the world.
North Korea developing nuclear weapons for Iran in secret £2bn deal - Trump backer
By OLI SMITH
13:06, Sat, Sep 23, 2017 | UPDATED: 19:49, Sat, Sep 23, 2017 A backer of Donald Trump has revealed that Iran has secretly invested billions of pounds in North Korea in exchange for "key nuclear weapon intelligence".
Jesse Jane Duff, a retired US Marine Gunnery Sergeant, said that Iran was circumventing its nuclear agreement with the West by going to North Korea for nuclear intelligence.
This comes as Iran successfully tested a new ballistic missile this morning with a range of 2,000 km (1,200 miles) after it was displayed at a military parade on Friday.
US President Donald Trump announced new sanctions against North Korea this week and Chinese banks have declared that they will stop banking activity with North Korea.
But despite this pressure tactics, key backers of Trump fear that an alliance with Iran could sustain the two powers.
Iran maintains an embassy in Pyongyang and the two countries are said to have close ties.
Speaking to Fox News Business, Mrs Duff said: "Iran has adhered to the specifics of the deal, but they don’t need to do nuclear research themselves since the North Koreans are doing it for them.
"North Korea is getting £2bn a year from Iran. They have merchandised their warfare, their chemical weapons and nuclear weapons."
"They are very aggressive with their nuclear technology, and that trade shows how the Iran deal is not working."
Carl Higbie, a former Navy Seal and a Trump 2020 campaign board member, added: "There is clearly an axis between North Korea and Iran, they are helping each other."
"They are an extremely dangerous duo and we need to resolve this."
"But Kim Jong-Un and the Iranians have never seen anyone talk back to them in these terms. We will not accept appeasement of these tyrants."
Mr Higbie warned President Trump's first move would be to "shoot down a North Korean missile".
Earlier this week, former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton said: "I think anything North Korea has Iran can buy, and anything Iran has it can give to North Korea."
A Look at the Tri-State's Active Fault Line
