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      US dispatches warships after China and Russia send naval patrol near Alaska

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      The US dispatched four navy warships as well as a reconnaissance airplane after multiple Chinese and Russian military vessels carried out a joint naval patrol near Alaska last week.The combined naval patrol, which the Wall Street Journal first reported, appeared to be the largest such flotilla to approach US territory, according to experts that spoke to the outlet.“It’s a historical first,” Brent Sadler, a retired Navy captain and senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told the Journal.He also said the flotilla’s proximity to Alaska was a “highly provocative” maneuver given Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine and political tensions between the US and China over Taiwan. The flotilla has since left.The US Northern Command confirmed the combined Chinese and Russian naval patrol, telling the Journal: “Air and maritime assets under our commands conducted operations to assure the defense of the United States and Canada. The patrol remained in international waters and was not considered a threat.”The command did not specify the number of vessels which made up the patrol or their exact location. But US senators from Alaska said the flotilla in question was made up of 11 Chinese and Russian warships working in concert near the Aleutian Islands.Four destroyers and a Poseidon P-8 patrol airplane made up the US response to the Chinese and Russian flotilla.In a statement to the Journal, the spokesperson of the Chinese embassy in Washington DC, Liu Pengyu, said that the patrol “is not targeted at any third party”.“According to the annual cooperation plan between the Chinese and Russian militaries, naval vessels of the two countries have recently conducted joint maritime patrols in relevant waters in the western and northern Pacific ocean,” Pengyu said. “This action is not targeted at any third party and has nothing to do with the current international and regional situation.”The Journal reported that the US destroyers sent to track the flotilla were the USS John S McCain, the USS Benfold, the USS John Finn and the USS Chung-Hoon.Alaska senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan have since responded to the joint Chinese and Russian patrol that came close to the Aleutian Islands by saying they are monitoring the situation closely for their constituents.Murkowski said: “We have been in close contact with leadership … for several days now and received detailed classified briefings about the foreign vessels that are transiting US waters in the Aleutians.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“This is a stark reminder of Alaska’s proximity to both China and Russia, as well as the essential role our state plays in our national defense and territorial sovereignty.”Sullivan echoed the sentiments of his fellow Republican Murkowski, saying: “The incursion by 11 Chinese and Russian warships operating together – off the coast of Alaska – is yet another reminder that we have entered a new era of authoritarian aggression led by the dictators in Beijing and Moscow.”He went on to compare the situation to one last September, when a single US coast guard cutter spotted a total of seven Chinese and Russian naval ships near Alaska.“Last summer the Chinese and Russian navies conducted a similar operation off the coast of Alaska,” Sullivan said. “Given that our response was tepid, I strongly encouraged senior military leaders to be ready with a much more robust response should such another joint Chinese-Russian naval operation occur off our coast.“For that reason, I was heartened to see that this latest incursion was met with four US Navy destroyers, which sends a strong message … that the United States will not hesitate to protect and defend our vital national interests in Alaska.” More

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      Biden overturns Trump decision on US space command headquarters location

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      Joe Biden has decided to keep US space command headquarters in Colorado, overturning a last-ditch decision by the administration of his presidential predecessor Donald Trump to move it to Alabama while also ending months of politically fueled debate, according to senior federal officials.The officials said Biden was convinced by the head of space command, Gen James Dickinson, who argued that moving his headquarters now would jeopardize military readiness. Dickinson’s view, however, was in contrast to air force leadership, who studied the issue at length and determined that relocating to Huntsville, Alabama, was the right move.The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the decision ahead of the announcement.The president, they said, believes that keeping the command in Colorado Springs would avoid a disruption in readiness that the move would cause, particularly as the US races to compete with China in space. And they said Biden firmly believes that maintaining stability will help the military be better able to respond in space over the next decade. Those factors, they said, outweighed what the president believed would be any minor benefits of moving to Alabama.Biden’s decision is sure to enrage Alabama lawmakers and fuel accusations that abortion politics played a role in the choice. The location debate has become entangled in the ongoing battle between the US senator Tommy Tuberville and the defense department over the move to provide travel for troops seeking reproductive healthcare.Tuberville, an Alabama Republican, opposed the policy and has blocked hundreds of military promotions in protest.The US officials said the abortion issue had no effect at all on Biden’s decision. And they said the president fully expected there would be different views on the matter within the defense department.Formally created in August 2019, the command was temporarily based in Colorado. And air force and space force leaders initially recommended it stay there. But in the final days of his presidency, Donald Trump decided it should be based in Huntsville.The change triggered a number of reviews.Proponents of keeping the command in Colorado have argued that moving it to Huntsville and creating a new headquarters would set back its progress at a time it needs to move quickly to be positioned to match China’s military space rise. And Colorado Springs is also home to the air force academy, which now graduates space force guardians, and more than 24 military space missions, including three space force bases.Officials also argued that any new headquarters in Alabama would not be completed until sometime after 2030, forcing a lengthy transition.Huntsville, however, scored higher than Colorado Springs in a federal government accountability office assessment of potential locations and has long been a home to some of the earliest missiles used in the nation’s space programs, including the Saturn V rocket. It is home to the army’s space and missile defense command.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAccording to officials, the air force secretary, Frank Kendall, who ordered his own review of the matter, leaned toward Huntsville, while Dickinson was staunchly in favor of staying put. The officials said the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, presented both options to Biden.The decision was good news for Colorado lawmakers.“For two and a half years we’ve known any objective analysis of this basing decision would reach the same conclusion we did, that Peterson space force base is the best home for space command,” Colorado’s Democratic US senator John Hickenlooper said in a statement. “Most importantly, this decision firmly rejects the idea that politics – instead of national security – should determine basing decisions central to our national security.”Colorado’s other Democratic US senator, Michael Bennet, said the decision “restores integrity to the Pentagon’s basing process and sends a strong message that national security and the readiness of our armed forces drive our military decisions”. More

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      House Republicans pass defense bill, setting up clash on abortion policy

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      The Republican-led House of Representatives on Friday approved a huge defense bill that includes amendments overturning the Pentagon’s policies on covering abortion services for the military, healthcare costs for transgender service members and diversity initiatives – setting up a historic clash with Democrats and the Biden administration that could imperil spending on the armed forces.The amendments, pushed by the GOP’s right flank with the support of the speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, represent the latest instance of conservative lawmakers using their influence in Congress’s lower chamber to attempt to change Joe Biden’s policies on a range of issues that chiefly animate the Republican base.They also seems certain to spark a major battle with Democrats who hold control of the Senate, and whose assent will be needed for the defense spending bill, a version of which Congress approves every year, to become law.“House Republicans have made a commitment to America that we fight for a nation that is safe,” McCarthy said shortly after the amended National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) covering the 2024 fiscal year passed on a mostly party-line vote.“Radical programs that are forced [on] our troops at the expense of readiness are now eliminated. Cutting-edge technology that is essential for the future of this country and to keep freedom around the world in the rise of China and Russia, will receive more investment than we’ve watched in the past,” McCarthy said, adding that the legislation costing $886.3bn would also give service members their largest pay increase in two decades.The NDAA is one of the bills Congress must pass every year, and often attracts bipartisan support, with politicians of both parties eager to show they support the United States military. But while it is not unusual for the defense spending measure to include provisions addressing other issues on Congress’s mind, rightwing Republicans this year proposed several amendments dealing with some of the most divisive issues in American society.On Thursday evening, Republicans pushed through an amendment to the bill that reverses a defense department policy covering expenses and leave for troops who must travel out of state to seek an abortion. The policy was implemented after the supreme court last year struck down Roe v Wade and allowed states to ban the procedure.The party also supported amendments banning the Pentagon’s healthcare plans from covering gender-affirming care for transgender individuals, as well as a provisions targeting diversity, equity and inclusions programs and banning any teaching in the defense department’s school system that America is “a fundamentally racist country”.Amendments halting military assistance to Ukraine and ending a policy of renaming military bases bearing monikers inspired by the Confederacy were voted down.While they did not formally tell their members to vote against the NDAA, the House’s top Democrats, Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader, whip Katherine Clark and caucus chair Pete Aguilar released a joint statement accusing Republicans of corrupting legislation that should be used to support American troops.“Extreme Maga Republicans have chosen to hijack the historically bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act to continue attacking reproductive freedom and jamming their rightwing ideology down the throats of the American people. House Republicans have turned what should be a meaningful investment in our men and women in uniform into an extreme and reckless legislative joyride,” the trio wrote, adding that they would vote against the bill.In the end, only four Democrats supported the NDAA, all of whom represent swing districts. The four Republicans who voted against it were conservatives of varying stripes, with Colorado’s Ken Buck releasing a statement saying the legislation is too expensive.“Our country is careening toward fiscal ruin, and Congress continues to turn a blind eye by passing these massive spending packages with no attention to their cost or efficacy,” Buck wrote, noting that he agrees “with several amendments to this bill”. More

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      US Marines without leader for first time in 150 years as Republican blocks nomination

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      The commandant of the US Marine Corps, Gen David Berger, stepped down on Monday, leaving the military branch without a confirmed leader for the first time in more than 150 years.The vacancy comes as one Republican senator, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, has staged a months-long blockade of Pentagon nominations to protest against the department’s abortion policies.Berger’s assistant commandant and potential successor, Gen Eric Smith, has stepped in as the acting leader of the marines while his nomination remains stalled in the Senate. Smith became the marines’ first acting commandant since 1859, when Archibald Henderson died in office.Smith’s nomination is one of more than 200 high-level Pentagon nominations that have already been affected by Tuberville’s blockade. In February, Tuberville launched his campaign of obstruction in response to the Pentagon’s new policy, enacted after the reversal of Roe v Wade, to cover travel costs for service members or service members’ spouses who have to leave their state to access abortion care.The Senate generally confirms non-controversial nominees like Smith by unanimous consent, but any single senator’s objection forces a floor vote. The laborious process of approving hundreds of stalled nominations via floor vote would probably take months, sparking criticism among Democrats that Tuberville’s antics may jeopardize military readiness.“What the senator is doing by holding these nominations, it’s a threat to our national security. Period. That’s what he’s doing,” the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said last month. “These are important nominations that we need, that the American people need to keep our country safe.”Tuberville has rejected such criticism, writing in a Washington Post op-ed last month: “My hold is not affecting readiness. Acting officials are in each one of the positions that are due for a promotion. The hold affects only those at the very top – generals and flag officers. The people who actually fight are not affected at all.”Tuberville shows no sign of abandoning his blockade, and the standoff could soon affect the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the highest-ranking US military officer, as Gen Mark Milley, retires in September. More

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      Cluster bombs to Ukraine will damage US moral leadership, Democrat says

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      The decision to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine risks costing the US its “moral leadership” in world affairs, the influential California Democratic congresswoman Barbara Lee said.“We know what takes place in terms of cluster bombs being very dangerous to civilians,” Lee said. “They don’t always immediately explode. Children can step on them. That’s a line we should not cross.”In 2001, Lee was the only member of Congress to vote against the war in Afghanistan. She is running to replace the retiring Dianne Feinstein in the Senate next year.Speaking to CNN’s State of the Union, she added: “I think [Joe Biden] has been doing a good job managing … [Russian president Vladimir] Putin’s aggressive war against Ukraine, but I think that this should not happen. [Biden] had to ask for a waiver under the Foreign Assistance Act just to do it because we have been preventing the use of cluster bombs since I believe 2010.”Biden also spoke to CNN, an interview released as he traveled to the UK, then to the Nato summit in Lithuania.His host, Fareed Zakaria, said: “These are weapons that a hundred nations ban, including some of our closest Nato allies. When there was news that the Russians might be using it, admittedly against civilians, your then press secretary said this might … constitute war crimes. What made you change your mind?”Biden said: “Two things … and it was a very difficult decision on my part. And I discussed this with our allies, discussed this with our friends up on [Capitol] Hill. And we’re in a situation where Ukraine continues to be brutally attacked across the board by … these cluster munitions that have dud rates that are … very high, that are a danger to civilians, number one.”“Dud rates” refers to cluster munition “bomblets” that do not explode when fired or dropped but can do so later.Biden continued: “Number two, the Ukrainians are running out of ammunition … And so what I finally did, [I] took the recommendation of the defense department to … provide them with something that has a very low dud rate. … I think it’s one in 50, which is the least likely to be blowing [up] and it’s not used in civilian areas. They’re trying to … stop those tanks from rolling.”Biden said: “It took me a while to be convinced to do it. But the main thing is, they either have the weapons to stop the Russians now from … stopping the Ukrainian offensive … or they don’t. And I think they needed them.”Lee was asked if the US was at risk in “engaging in war crimes”.“What I think is that we would risk losing our moral leadership,” she said. “Because when you look at the fact that over 120 countries have signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions, saying they should never be used, they should never be used.“And in fact, many of us have urged the administration to sign on to this convention. And so I’m hoping that the administration would reconsider this because these are very dangerous bombs … and this is a line that I don’t believe we should cross.”Another influential Democrat, Tim Kaine, from Virginia and a member of the Senate armed services committee, also questioned Biden’s decision.“It could give a green light to other nations to do something different as well,” Kaine told Fox News Sunday, adding that he “appreciates the Biden administration has grappled with the risks”.A House Republican, Michael McCaul of Texas, chair of the foreign affairs committee, said he did not “see anything wrong” with supplying cluster bombs.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSpeaking to CNN, McCaul said: “Russia is dropping, with impunity, cluster bombs in Ukraine … all the Ukrainians and [President Volodymyr] Zelenskiy are asking for is to give them the same weapons the Russians have to use in their own country, against Russians who are in their own country … they do not want these to be used in Russia.”McCaul criticized Biden, saying: “As you look at the counter-offensive, it’s been slowed tremendously because this administration has been so slow to get the weapons.”John Kirby, the national security council spokesperson, told ABC’s This Week: “We are very mindful of the concerns about … unexploded ordnance being picked up by civilians or children and being hurt … and we’re going to focus on Ukraine with de-mining efforts. In fact, we’re doing it right now and we will when war conditions permit.”Ukraine’s push for membership of Nato is another divisive issue.“I don’t think it’s ready for membership in Nato,” Biden said. “I don’t think there is unanimity in Nato about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the family now, in the middle of a war … we’re determined to [defend] every inch of territory that is Nato territory. It’s a commitment we’ve all made, no matter what.“If the war is going on, then we’re all … at war with Russia, if that were the case. So, I think we have to lay out a rational path for … Ukraine to be able to qualify to get into Nato.”Kirby said Ukraine needed to make reforms “necessary for any Nato ally to become a member … political reforms, economic reforms, good governance. Those kinds of things.”Zelenskiy also spoke to ABC. If there was no unity on an invitation for Ukraine to join Nato, he said, “Ukraine should get clear security guarantees while it is not in Nato and that is a very important point.”Adding that Ukraine “would like to have all the decisions to be made during this summit”, he said: “It’s obvious that I’ll be there and I’ll be doing whatever I can in order to, so to speak, expedite that solution. … I don’t want to go to Vilnius for fun if the decision has been made beforehand.” More

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      US says it killed Islamic State leader Usamah al-Muhajir in Syria

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      The US military said on Sunday it conducted a strike that killed Usamah al-Muhajir, an Islamic State leader in eastern Syria.“The strike on Friday was conducted by the same MQ-9s that had, earlier in the day, been harassed by Russian aircraft in an encounter that had lasted almost two hours,” a statement from US Central Command said.It was not immediately clear how the US military confirmed that the person killed was Muhajir. Central Command did not give any more details about him.The statement said there were no indications any civilians were killed in the strike. The military was assessing reports that a civilian may have been injured.“We have made it clear that we remain committed to the defeat of Isis throughout the region,” Gen Erik Kurilla, commander of US Central Command, said in the statement.Washington has stepped up raids and operations against suspected Islamic State operatives in Syria, killing and arresting leaders who had taken shelter in areas under Turkey-backed rebel control after the group lost its last territory in Syria in 2019.The US-led campaign which killed former IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who declared himself the “caliph of all Muslims”, has since targeted surviving leaders, many of whom are thought to have planned attacks abroad.US military commanders say the IS remains a significant threat within the region, though its capabilities have been degraded and its ability to re-establish its network weakened.At its peak in 2014, the IS controlled one-third of Iraq and Syria. Though it was beaten back in both countries, its militants continue to mount insurgent attacks.The US air force earlier released video footage it said showed an encounter between the drones and Russian fighter jets on Wednesday, which forced the MQ-9 Reapers to take evasive action.US Air Forces Central said in a statement: “These events represent a new level of unprofessional and unsafe action by Russian air forces operating in Syria.”Lt Gen Alex Grynkewich, commander of Ninth Air Force in the Middle East, said one of the Russian pilots moved their aircraft in front of a drone and engaged the SU-35’s afterburner, reducing the drone operator’s ability to safely operate the aircraft.R Adm Oleg Gurinov, head of the Russian Reconciliation Center for Syria, said the Russian and Syrian militaries had started a six-day joint training that was set to end on Monday.In comments carried by Syrian state media, Gurinov said Moscow was concerned about flights of drones by the US-led coalition over northern Syria, calling them “systematic violations of protocols” designed to avoid clashes between the two militaries. More

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      Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistleblower, dies aged 92

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      Daniel Ellsberg, a US government analyst who became one of the most famous whistleblowers in world politics when he leaked the Pentagon Papers, exposing US government knowledge of the futility of the Vietnam war, has died. He was 92. His death was confirmed by his family on Friday.In March, Ellsberg announced that he had inoperable pancreatic cancer. Saying he had been given three to six months to live, he said he had chosen not to undergo chemotherapy and had been assured of hospice care.“I am not in any physical pain,” he wrote, adding: “My cardiologist has given me license to abandon my salt-free diet of the last six years. This has improved my life dramatically: the pleasure of eating my favourite foods!”On Friday, the family said Ellsberg “was not in pain” when he died. He spent his final months eating “hot chocolate, croissants, cake, poppyseed bagels and lox” and enjoying “several viewings of his all-time favourite [movie], Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, the family statement added.“In his final days, surrounded by so much love from so many people, Daniel joked, ‘If I had known dying would be like this, I would have done it sooner …’“Thank you, everyone, for your outpouring of love, appreciation and well-wishes. It all warmed his heart at the end of his life.”Tributes were swift and many.Alan Rusbridger, the former editor-in-chief of the Guardian, said Ellsberg “was widely, and rightly, acclaimed as a great and significant figure. But not by Richard Nixon, who wanted him locked up. He’s why the national interest should never be confused with the interest of whoever’s in power.”The Pulitzer-winning journalist Wesley Lowery wrote: “It was an honor knowing Daniel … I’ll remain inspired by his commitment to a mission bigger than himself.”The writer and political commentator Molly Jong-Fast said: “One of the few really brave people on this earth has left it.”The MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan said: “Huge loss for this country. An inspiring, brave, and patriotic American. Rest in power, Dan, rest in power.”The Pentagon Papers covered US policy in Vietnam between 1945 and 1967 and showed that successive administrations were aware the US could not win.By the end of the war in 1975, more than 58,000 Americans were dead and 304,000 were wounded. Nearly 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers were killed, as were about 1 million North Vietnamese soldiers and Viet Cong guerillas and more than 2 million civilians in North and South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.The Pentagon Papers caused a sensation in 1971, when they were published – first by the New York Times and then by the Washington Post and other papers – after the supreme court overruled the Nixon administration on whether publication threatened national security.In 2017, the story was retold in The Post, an Oscar-nominated film directed by Steven Spielberg in which Ellsberg was played by the British actor Matthew Rhys.Ellsberg served in the US Marine Corps in the 1950s but went to Vietnam in the mid-60s as a civilian analyst for the defense department, conducting a study of counter-insurgency tactics. When he leaked the Pentagon Papers, he was working for the Rand Corporation.In 2021, a half-century after he blew the whistle, he told the Guardian: “By two years in Vietnam, I was reporting very strongly that there was no prospect of progress of any kind so the war should not be continued. And that came to be the majority view of the American people before the Pentagon Papers came out.“By ’68 with the Tet offensive, by ’69, most Americans already thought it was immoral to continue but that had no effect on Nixon. He thought he was going to try to win it and they would be happy once he’d won it, however long it took.”In 1973, Ellsberg was put on trial. Charges of espionage, conspiracy and stealing government property adding up to a possible 115-year sentence were dismissed due to gross governmental misconduct, including a break-in at the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist, part of the gathering scandal which led to Nixon’s resignation in 1974.Born in Chicago on 7 April 1931, Ellsberg was educated at Harvard and Cambridge, completing his PhD after serving as a marine. He was married twice and had two sons and a daughter.After the end of the Vietnam war he became by his own description “a lecturer, scholar, writer and activist on the dangers of the nuclear era, wrongful US interventions and the urgent need for patriotic whistleblowing”.Ellsberg contributed to publications including the Guardian and published four books, among them an autobiography, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers, and most recently The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.In recent years, he publicly supported Chelsea Manning, the US soldier who leaked records of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, who published Manning’s leaks, and Edward Snowden, who leaked records concerning surveillance by the National Security Agency.On Friday, the journalist Glenn Greenwald, one of the Guardian team which published the Snowden leaks in 2013, winning a Pulitzer prize, called Ellsberg “a true American hero” and “the most vocal defender” of Assange, Snowden, Manning and “others who followed in his brave footsteps”.Steven Donziger, an attorney who represented Indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest against the oil giant Chevron, a case that led to his own house arrest, said: “Today the world lost a singularly brave voice who spoke truth about the US military machine in Vietnam and risked his life in the process. I drew deep inspiration from the courage of Daniel Ellsberg and was deeply honored to have his support.”In 2018, in a joint Guardian interview with Snowden, Ellsberg paid tribute to those who refused to be drafted to fight in Vietnam.“I would not have thought of doing what I did,” he said, “which I knew would risk prison for life, without the public example of young Americans going to prison to make a strong statement that the Vietnam war was wrong and they would not participate, even at the cost of their own freedom.“Without them, there would have been no Pentagon Papers. Courage is contagious.”Three years later, in an interview to mark 50 years since the publication of the Pentagon Papers, he said he “never regretted for a moment” his decision to leak.His one regret, he said, was “that I didn’t release those documents much earlier when I think they would have been much more effective.“I’ve often said to whistleblowers, ‘Don’t do what I did, don’t wait years till the bombs are falling and people have been dying.’” More

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      Jack Teixeira, Pentagon leaks suspect, indicted by federal grand jury

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      Jack Teixeira, the 21-year-old US airman accused of leaking confidential intelligence and defense documents online has been indicted by a federal grand jury, the Department of Justice said on Thursday.Teixeira, of North Dighton, Massachusetts, has been charged with six counts of wilful retention and transmission of classified information relating to national defense, the justice department said.He was arrested by armed FBI agents at his family home in April this year and remains in custody.More details soon … More