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| Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley warned Congress on Tuesday that the chances of a "significant international conflict between great powers" are increasing. Milley warned that both China and Russia are threats to the so-called "rules-based" global order. "We are now facing two global powers: China and Russia, each with significant military capabilities both who intend to fundamentally change the rules-based current global order," Milley told the House Armed Services Committee. "We are entering a world that is becoming more unstable. The potential for significant international conflict between great powers is increasing, not decreasing." The hearing was focused on the Pentagon's $773 billion budget request for 2023, part of the $813 billion in military spending President Biden has asked Congress for. Milley said the budget is in alignment with the new National Defense Strategy (NDS) that was recently briefed to Congress but has yet to be declassified. |
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| When lives are on the line and a fast decision has to be made, leaving the matter in the hands of the military is sub-optimal. In the future, the decisions could be left in the hands of artificial intelligence. That's a goal for the Pentagon in general and DARPA in particular, with the underlying assumption that the AI won't have human biases and may be able to optimize decisions to save lives. For the military, saving lives tends to be a secondary objective, at best, and artificial intelligence designed by and for the military is almost certain to focus on the priorities of top officials. Naturally, the AI will echo the ideologies of the highest ranked officials, and with the military long focused on combat success and efficiency, there is no reason to believe the AI would be designed around maximizing lives saved. |
| The Biden administration has catered to the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the last year with more weapons sales and deployments of US forces, but this has only encouraged them to demand even more support and to complain that the US has not indulged their whims enough. Now there are reports that the two despotic clients want the US to offer them additional protection through a formal defense treaty. At the same time, these governments and their cheerleaders in Washington are broadcasting their unhappiness with Biden because he has not been as sycophantic as they believe an American president should be. Despite all this, Biden seems to be determined to make the same error that Obama made in his desire to "reassure" governments that cannot be placated. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have proven to be increasing liabilities, and the US should be seeking to disentangle itself from these governments and to cut off all assistance to them as soon as possible. The war on Yemen is the most important reason to halt military assistance, but even if the war ended tomorrow it has already shown how US weapons and support have given these states the means to wage aggressive wars against other countries. |
| | In recent weeks, US officials, including President Biden, claimed that Russia was considering using chemical weapons in Ukraine. But three US officials told NBC News this week that there is no evidence Russia had moved any chemical weapons near Ukraine and that the claims were part of an information war against Moscow. The US officials said that the Biden administration has been sharing declassified intelligence that wasn't "rock solid." The NBC report said that multiple US officials acknowledged that the US has used information as a weapon against Russia "even when confidence in the accuracy of the information wasn't high." The report said the US has used "low confidence" information, like the chemical weapons claims, as a "deterrent effect." One official told NBC that by sharing the information, the US is just "trying to get inside Putin's head." |
| For the 2023 fiscal year, President Biden requested a massive $813 billion military budget, about a 4% increase from the $782 billion that was approved for 2022. But for hawks in Congress, it's not enough. Republicans are largely united in their calls for more military spending than what Biden wants. Republican hawks want the military budget to take inflation into account and add real growth on top of that. Last month, inflation reached 7.9%, a 40-year record high. Enough Democrats are on board with the idea of giving Biden more money than he asked for that Congress is expected to vote in favor of boosting the budget. Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA), the vice-chair of the House Armed Services Committee, complained about Biden's proposed military budget, writing on Twitter that "It sucks." |
| Recently, European officials have indicated that the Vienna talks toward the Iran nuclear deal are very close, and they're working with the US and Iran, who are indirectly talking, to get things settled.
Iran indicated that they consider negotiations finished, and are just waiting for the US to make a "political decision" to accept the deal or not. US officials had tried to put the onus on Iran, but also seemed to think a deal was attainable.
Then Secretary of State Tony Blinken chimed in. In an interview with MSNBC, Blinken said he is not optimistic that a deal with Iran will necessarily be reached at all, claiming he's not confident Iran will return to compliance under the deal. |
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