Новости за 02.01.2019

Washington's decision to drop out of the INF has fueled speculation about the return of a full-blown, Cold-War style nuclear arms race, as Russia has reflexively threatened to build up its tactical defenses along Europe's periphery in the face of what's expected to be a buildup of American intermediate-range arms.

Over the summer, Sweden’s defence commission warned that ‘a larger European conflict could start with an attack on Sweden’. Politicians and military planners clearly agreed – in June, 22,000 Swedish volunteer soldiers were called up for the largest surprise exercise since 1975.

On December 17, two reports detailing ongoing Russian interference operations commissioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee were made public. They generated a week’s worth of headlines and sent members of Congress and cable news pundits into a Cold War frenzy.

US Strategic Command (or “Stratcom” if you’re trying to make a nuclear-capable arm of the US Defense Department sound cool) has issued an apology for a poorly received New Year’s Eve tweet which has since been deleted.

Brazilian President-elect Jair Bolsonaro’s incoming foreign minister, Ernesto Araújo, called for the formation of a “nucleus composed of the three largest Christian countries” – Brazil, Russia, and the United States – in a document explaining to the President-elect what the administration’s foreign policy should look like. Titled ‘For a Foreign Policy of the Brazilian People’, the document is reported by Brazil’s Folha de S.

A lot of people are scratching their heads over Trump’s recent moves distancing himself from Israel. He announced that he was pulling troops from Syria, thereby nettling Israel’s friends who counted on him to take on Iran in Syria. Iran, Iran, Iran, say Chuck Schumer, Lindsey Graham, and Bret Stephens. Trump overrode John Bolton, his neoconservative national security adviser, in announcing the withdrawal.

The ship the British Royal Navy deployed to the Black Sea in order to send a message to Russia lacks heavy weaponry and could not defend itself from intensive attack.

Reports that President Trump is slowing America’s withdrawal from Syria were confirmed today in a series of Tweets, during which Trump confirmed that the US was “slowly sending our troops back home.”