NATO troops mobilize for Steadfast Defender 2024 | DW News

NATO has started its biggest European military exercises for decades. Operation Steadfast Defender will include more than three months of naval, air and ground maneuvers across much of the continent.

Are we in the middle of Cold War 2.0?

 Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says there are ways to prevent all-out conflict between China and the US.

Within years, China will overtake the United States as the world’s number one economy, and China’s influence is spreading worldwide – mostly at the expense of US global leadership.

Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd tells host Steve Clemons that this is the “decisive decade” in relations between the two powers. Either they find a way to share wealth and power, or they head down a collision course.

Vikings, mining, Elvis: The story of Greenland’s melting ice cap

 

Our team travels to the remote edge of the ice sheet to discover the effect of the climate crisis on this stunning Arctic environment.

On this edition of Planet SOS, we explore how the melting ice cap is in danger of exposing nuclear waste from the Cold War and report on the growing controversy over the mining of rare earth minerals in this pristine landscape.

We also see how the old Inuit ways are disappearing and show how sheep farming thrives in the area the Vikings once settled.

Is the US leading a new nuclear arms race?

 

The US speaks of non-proliferation but is spending billions to upgrade its nuclear arsenal.

One nuclear bomb can wipe out almost half a million people, yet the United States and Russia have thousands of these weapons. And seven other countries have created atomic bombs as well.

There is no way to reverse time and get rid of these weapons, and countries will spend billions to maintain and upgrade their arsenals, but to what end?

Steve Clemons talks about US nuclear strategy with former Congressman John Tierney, the executive director of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, and Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of The National Interest.

These photos sparked a Cold War propaganda feud

 

In 1961, Life magazine photographed systemic poverty in Brazil. One Brazilian magazine responded with a similar report — featuring photos of New York City.

Cold War stories rediscovered – anonymous letters from East Germany

 In 1949, at the outset of the Cold War, the BBC invited people in East Germany to send in letters. Anonymously, of course. For the next quarter of a century, on a program called Letters Without Signature, the BBC broadcast these letters, read aloud.

Are China and the US entering a new Cold War? - BBC News

 

The current tensions between the US and China are being described as a new type of cold war. But is it really similar to the ideological battle between the US and the former Soviet Union? And where are the risks of such a cold war escalating into something more dangerous?

China has “no intention of a Cold War” as tension with Washington deepens

 

The annual United Nations General Assembly has been taking place with world's leaders giving recorded video speeches — due to the coronavirus pandemic.

James Dresnok: The US Soldier Who Defected to North Korea

During the Cold War, an American soldier named James Joseph Dresnok was stationed on the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. One day, he decided to simply walk over the line to the North. He was “defecting”; betraying his country and choosing to start a new life in an enemy land that he knew nothing about.

USA vs China: A new Cold War? | To the point

Consulate closures. Trade war. Military manoeuvres. Tensions continue to rise between the superpowers USA and China. Is it the beginning of a new Cold War?

USA vs China: The new cold war on the horizon | DW Analysis

In the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic, the world could soon face a new geopolitical threat: the United States and China descending into a new kind of Cold War. Why is this happening? What are the scenarios? And most importantly, what can and should the rest of the world do about it?

The Middle East's cold war, explained

The Saudis and Iranians have never actually declared war on each other. Instead, they fight indirectly by supporting opposing sides in other countries and inciting conflicts. This is known as proxy warfare. And it’s had a devastating effect on the region. Countries, especially poor ones, can’t function if there are larger countries pulling strings within their borders. And that’s exactly what's happening in the Middle East. The Saudi-Iranian rivalry has become a fight over influence, and the whole region is a battlefield.

Detonator Donnie Or Donnie The Detonator And His Nuclear Weapons

In November of 1980 America elected Ronald Reagan as President a strident Cold Warrior.  For all of his bluster and anti Communist rhetoric he began  negotiations for the first START Treaty with the former Soviet Union with the aim of reducing the nuclear arms arsenal of both nations.   Two treaties were negotiated: The first coming into effect in 1991 during the Presidency of George H.W. Bush and the second in 1993 during the Clinton administration.   Both George W. Bush and Barack Obama continued working for the reduction of nuclear weapons.   Along comes Donald Trump who thinks that if America has nuclear weapons  surely they can be put to good use. Additionally Donnie Dunderhead has no idea what the Nuclear Triad is.   And now the fool has come full circle.

Why stop there? When the stupid flows it should flow not like a trickle but like a torrent.  Today he decided that what the world needs is another  arms race.

But on Friday’s Morning Joe, during an off-air conversation with Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, Trump daftly asserted — according to the MSNBC duo — “Let it be an arms race, we will outmatch them at every pass. And outlast them all.” Remarkably, the comment came following an appearance on Morning Joe with newly-named White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who allegedly phoned the President-elect while sitting with Brzezinski and Scarborough; when the phone was transferred over to Brzezinski, the above comment was reportedly made by Trump.


It's hard to believe or even fathom that Donald Trump will become commander of America's military on January 20, 2017.    Can the world survive with Donald Trump as commander in chief of America's armed forces?   It's beyond frightening that this man baby will have the ability to destroy  us all.

Patrolling The DMZ

During the Cold War the most separation and access point between the East and West of Europe was Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin.  It was sunominsess  with the tensions of the time today that has shifted further to the east with the border between North and South Korea taking its place.

On patrol in the DMZ: North Korean landmines, biting winds and tin cans

As tensions on the peninsula escalate, a former South Korean guard describes life at one of the world’s most fortified borders. NK News reports

Of the 130,000 South Korean soldiers conscripted every year, only a handful will ever get to see their sworn enemies in the flesh. They are the ones stationed at the “demilitarised zone” that separates the two Koreas. 

The area, commonly known as the DMZ, is one of the most fortified borders in the world – separating two counties that have technically been at war since 1953. It also a serves as a tourist attraction, visited by thousands of people a year.

Tensions along the border have been raised since two South Korean officers were gravely injured by a landmine last August. Seoul immediately blamed Pyongyang, who rejected the allegations but declared the country on a war footing.

On patrol

For Shin Yong-tae, a former South Korean soldier who took part in patrol missions near the North Korean border, the threat of landmines was always present.

US interventions post-Cold War

The proposed US military strike on Syria would be the latest in a long list of overseas intrusions.

August 2, 1990 — February 28, 1991

First Gulf War

Rationale: To rebuff Saddam Hussein’s invasion and annexation of Kuwait. 

International authority: U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing subsequent international coalition. 

Type of operation: Airstrikes and ground invasion. 

U.S. involvement: Massive investment of military resources, including at least 575,000 troops at vanguard of 34-nation coalition. 

Outcome: In conducting the war, 294 U.S. personnel were killed; Iraqi deaths – both civilians and soldiers -- numbered between 20,000 and 40,000. As a result of the invasion, Saddam’s forces were repelled from Kuwait, and the Emir of Kuwait was restored to his throne. U.N. economic sanctions on Iraq, initiated by a Security Council resolution before the war, continued after the war’s conclusion. Also after the war, Saddam crushed an Iraqi Shiite uprising against his rule, which had been encouraged, but not supported, by the United States.