US generals have said that a future war against Russia and China will be quick and lead to numerous victims.

These estimates were made at the annual conference of the Association of the US Army in Washington, DC, reports The Independent.

According to the newspaper, at the event, held on the 4th of October, the head of the United States Army Staff Mark A. Milley expressed the view that future large-scale war are "almost inevitable".

In turn, Major General William Hicks noted that "any conflict in the near future with the use of conventional arms will flow very quickly and lead to enormous sacrifices." "We can not stop it at will," - he added.

The US Navy is seemingly ready to conduct operations in areas regarded as no-go missile areas, said the US Chief of Naval Operations. Such defense missile zones can be found at Russia’s and China’s coastlines.

This was announced by Admiral John Richardson during remarks made at the US Naval Institute – CSIS Maritime Security Dialogue.

He said that from now on the US Navy is “scaling down” the term ‘A2/AD’ (anti-access/area denial) from its communications.

Earlier, these areas were viewed as “an impenetrable keep out zone that forces can only enter at extreme peril to their existence, let alone their mission,” Richardson wrote in an article for the National Interest outlet.

“It’s a term bandied about pretty freely and lacks the precise definition it probably would benefit from, and that ambiguity sends a variety of signals,” he said on Tuesday.

The public’s security worries and doubts over the guarantee provided by the US are out of historic backgrounds and reality considerations. Trapping in the whirlpool of the peninsula tension, ROK would be the direct victim with a total turn in its destiny once the situation lost control.

What’s worse, the remote US is by no means reliable helper. In recent years, in order to expand its hegemony, the superpower has fallen into a breaker of international law. Employing a “puppet” strategy, it repeatedly threw other countries or regions into disarray and then escaped unscathed.

China will never change its stance of opposing the deployment of the THAAD system since the missile shield, instead of easing regional tension, will pose serious threat to the strategic security balance of regional nations including China.

US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced last Thursday a further dramatic expansion of the Pentagon’s “rebalance” or “pivot” to the Asia Pacific that will only heighten the already tense military confrontation with China in the region. He insisted that the Asia Pacific was “the single most consequential region for America’s future.”

Speaking on board the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in San Diego, Carter outlined what he called the “third phase” of the US military build-up and the strengthening of a “principled and inclusive security network” in Asia. While claiming that Beijing was not excluded from the “network,” every aspect of the “third phase” is aimed at preparing for a war with China.

The idiotic wars of the Washington war-hawks and their military industry–in Syria, in Ukraine, Libya, Iraq and now the South China Sea provocations against China–are not going to stop what is now clearly the most impressive and economically altering project in more than a century.

The term “American Century” was triumphantly proclaimed in a famous editorial in Life magazine in 1941 in the early phase of World War II, before the United States had even entered the war, to describe the system publisher Henry Luce saw dominating the postwar world after the fall of the rival British Empire.

China has given approval to at least two companies to export corn, trading sources said, in a radical move by the world's No. 2 producer to cut its ballooning surplus and unleash more supply into a saturated global market.

Despite hopes that South China Sea tensions were easing, provocative comments from US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter risk setting fire to the diplomatic tinderbox.

The U.S. Department of State on Tuesday pledged to block North Korea’s access to banking infrastructure at the international level a day after affiliates of the Chinese HongXiang group were charged with illicit nuclear-related trades with North Korea.

PRESIDENT of the Philippines said he would visit Russia and China to open alliances with the two powers after he slammed the EU for attacking his drug policy.

China has sent fighter planes for the first time over a strait near Japan, the two governments said Monday, after Tokyo announced it may patrol alongside the US in the disputed South China Sea.

More than 40 Chinese military aircraft on Sunday traversed the Miyako Strait between Japan’s Miyako and Okinawa Islands, to carry out training in the West Pacific, according to a statement on China’s defense ministry website.

The Sukhoi Su-30 fighters, bombers and refueling aircraft did not violate Japanese airspace.

Japan’s defense ministry said it was the first time Chinese fighters had passed over the strait.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has warned the US against the huge militarization of Northeast Asia, calling on Washington to stop using the threat of an alleged attack by North Korea “as a pretext” to deploy an advanced missile system in South Korea.

“It is inadmissible to use this situation as a pretext for the massive militarization of Northeast Asia and deployment of another position area for US global missile defense systems,” he said while addressing the 71st session of the UN General Assembly in New York on Friday.

China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC), one of the “Top 10” military industry groups controlled directly by the central government, said on Sunday that the new radar system’s entangled photons had detected targets 100km away in a recent field test.

That’s five times the “potential range” of a laboratory prototype jointly developed by researchers from Canada, Germany, Britain and the United States last year.

As part of their requirements to enter into the SDR basket of currencies in October, China will soon be revealing the quantity of their gold reserves sometime between now and Sept. 30. And with them also recently being appointed the managers of the M SDR internationalization program, debate over China implementing a gold backed currency is once again increasing at an accelerating rate.

Although Washington has taken every effort to undermine Beijing's position in the Southeast region, US President Obama's "Pivot to Asia" policy has failed. Geostrategic analyst Mathew Maavak and CNTV Editor Tom McGregor shared their views on the prospects of the South China Sea dispute in an interview with Sputnik.

China ’s re-emergence as a world economic power raises important questions about what we can learn from its previous rise and fall and about the external and internal threats confronting this emerging economic superpower for the immediate future.

The US, by presuming to dictate all that takes place across Asia, has all but declared itself a hegemon.

Reiterating the notion of American primacy and exceptionalism is a full-time occupation for the US State Department’s employees. This includes US Ambassador to ASEAN Nina Hachigian who pointed out to followers on Twitter that she had “spoke to some Lao shop owners” following US President Barack Obama’s recent visit to the Southeast Asian nation, and “they said [President Obama’s] visit was the most exciting and significant event in decades.”

Of course, for the nation of Laos, the most significant event regarding the US is undoubtedly the 2 million tons of munitions the US dumped on it between 1964 and 1973. These 2 million tons include cluster bombs consisting of some 266 million submunitions, an estimated 30% of which were left unexploded and remain to this day an enduring, deadly hazard to Laos and its 6.8 million people.

The pinnacle of the global financial system is warning that conditions are right for a “full-blown banking crisis” in China. Since the last financial crisis, there has been a credit boom in China that is really unprecedented in world history. At this point the total value of all outstanding loans in China has hit a grand total of more than 28 trillion dollars. That is essentially equivalent to the commercial banking systems of the United States and Japan combined. While it is true that government debt is under control in China, corporate debt is now 171 percent of GDP, and it is only a matter of time before that debt bubble horribly bursts. The situation in China has already grown so dire that the Bank for International Settlements is sounding the alarm…

Normally the Bank for International Settlements is not prone to making extremely bold pronouncements, and so this warning about China seems a bit out of character.

The most important issue in the US presidential election is the one neither of the two main capitalist candidates, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump, is talking about: the increasing likelihood that the next US president will order direct military action against Russia, China or North Korea, all countries that possess nuclear weapons.

The mounting danger of such a war was underscored by the US bombing of a Syrian government military post on Saturday, killing dozens of Syrian army soldiers. The US claim that this was done accidentally—against a major, well-known Syrian military installation, the Deir ez-Zor Air Base—has no credibility. A similar US “mistake” could easily lead to the death of Russian soldiers and escalate into a full-scale military confrontation between the two powers that control 93 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons.

The People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN)'s East China Sea Fleet has drawn attention in recent years over its growing number of modern destroyers. The destroyer flotilla, as part of the frontline group guarding the East China Sea, conducts regular patrol missions and provides strategic support in political and diplomatic disputes in the area.

Can they adapt to new developments brought by the strategic shifts facing the Chinese navy? The Global Times reporter visited the flotilla recently to hear its stories.

"As a combat troop, the fundamental mission is our ability to win. There is no doubt about our fighting strength," Xu Haihua, the captain of the flotilla, told the Global Times.

James George Jatras also explained the rationale behind the harsh comments about Trump from the Democratic camp and the overall attitude towards the Republican nominee.

Hillary is the candidate of the "deep state", of the oligarchy, he said. In effect. the way the script was supposed to run was that the corresponding co-candidate should have been Jeb Bush so that "we have "Tweedledee – Tweedledum" choices like we usually get."

He also pointed out one reason why people are really concerned about Hillary's political and physical viability and might not want to see her go is that they realize there will be "blood bath in the Democratic party while deciding who succeeds her."

Japan's defense minister says its forces will increase engagement in the South China Sea through training cruises with the U.S. Navy and multilateral exercises with regional navies.

Newly appointed Defense Minister Tomomi Inada says Japan will also help build the capacity of coastal nations. She was speaking ahead her first meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter Thursday in Washington.

Pyongyang has managed to tick off even China, which had always been a natural ally to North Korea in the past, the journalist emphasized. "Beijing had good communication with Kim Jong-un's father, and restrained Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions. But Kim Jong-un has managed to significantly complicate relations not only with world powers, but also with their closest neighbor."

In this regard, it's notable, according to the journalist, that Kim has never made an official visit to China, or even met with Chinese President Xi Jinping. "Russia and China are the only two countries that continue to engage in dialog with Pyongyang. The recent nuclear test in the peninsula has complicated the already delicate regional balance. Everyone understands that a war on the Korean peninsula would have far-reaching and unpredictable consequences."

China on Wednesday warned Taiwan not to allow exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to visit, after a high-profile Taiwan legislator invited him to the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its own, a trip that would worsen already poor ties.

China regards the 80-year-old monk as a separatist. Taiwan's former president, Ma Ying-jeou, who favored close economic ties with China, refused the Dalai Lama entry several times after his last visit to Taiwan in 2009.

On that occasion, Ma allowed him in but did not meet him.

Taiwan's new president, Tsai Ing-wen, elected in January, has not said whether the government would allow a visit by the Dalai Lama, who congratulated Tsai on her "remarkable" victory.

Freddy Lim, one of Taiwan's most famous heavy-metal singers and an outspoken critic of Beijing, who was elected to parliament in January, invited the Dalai Lama when he met him in India last week.

Saudi Arabia is the world’s newest drone power. And that could be a problem, since the Saudis are in the midst of a rather nasty war.
Riyadh has signed a contract with Chinese firm Chengdu for an unspecified number of Pterodactyl drones, Saudi media reported in late August and early September.

The 30-foot-long, propeller-driven Pterodactyl, which Chengdu apparently modeled on America’s iconic Predator and Reaper drones, can fly for hours at a time carrying cameras and missiles. Operators on the ground control the unmanned aerial vehicle via satellite.

As far as killer drones go, the Pterodactyl probably isn’t terribly sophisticated—its sensors are certainly less capable than U.S.-made models—and that can mean the difference between life and death for innocent people caught in the crossfire as flying robots hunt militants on the ground.

On Thursday night, China will send its second Earth-orbiting satellite laboratory into space. Tiangong-2 will take off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the country’s northwest Gansu province nine seconds after 10:04 p.m. local time (10:04 a.m. EDT).

The announcement of the exact time was made Wednesday by China Spaceflight on its Twitter page. A live stream of the event is also available on Weibo, China’s own Twitter-like microblogging website.

The space lab being launched Thursday makes improvements over its predecessor, Tiangong-1. According to CCTV America, the U.S. arm of the Chinese state broadcaster, some of these include the ability for astronauts to stay onboard for up to 30 days, refueling of propellant while in orbit, and a range of new experiments. A cold atom space clock that measures time with the estimated precision of more than a trillionth of a second will also be in the lab.

Beijing has blamed Washington for exacerbating the “vicious circle” of tensions on the Korean Peninsula after the US pinned the responsibility for Pyongyang’s nuclear test last week on China’s alleged lack of effort to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis.

On Friday North Korea made headlines after conducting its fifth nuclear test. The 10 kiloton explosion set off an artificial earthquake and an avalanche of international responses condemning the test.

While Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called for a more “creative” response to the situation rather than issuing endless rounds of sanctions, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter over the weekend blamed China for its failure to curb the North Korean threat.

U.S. forces advising the Philippine military against an Islamic insurgency are doing more harm than good and must leave, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said Monday.

Duterte, who made international headlines last week by crudely insulting President Obama, said white Westerners are an inviting target for kidnap-for-ransom groups such as the militant Abu Sayyaf in the southern Philippines. Duterte blamed his government's ties to the West — and a grisly U.S. military operation that targeted Muslims more than 100 years ago — for fueling much of the unrest centered in the Mindanao island group.

”I do not want a rift with America, but they have to go," Duterte, who is from the Mindanao region, said during a speech in Manila. "Americans, they (insurgents) will really kill them."

China’s outpost of Sansha in the South China Sea has sent vessels to drive away at least 370 foreign ships from disputed waters in the area in recent years, according to an article penned by its mayor, Xiao Jie.
The patrols were carried out from Sansha, a prefecture-level city set up four years ago to administer the Spratly Islands, Paracel Islands and the Macclesfield Bank, called the Zongsha Islands by China. They have patrolled 324 times over 46,000 nautical miles in what is called a “five in one mechanism to safeguard China’s maritime rights”, referring to a combination of forces of the Communist Party, government, military, police and civilians.

During the first Annual Summit organized by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in Beijing, China has shown her intention to take over the global leadership in infrastructure investment. By the end of this year, AIIB would have more than 100 members, making it the first lending institution in multilateral loans in history, under the control of the most important emerging countries. Yet, it is expected that she makes the decision of dropping off the Dollar, as it is the only way to break away from US hegemony in international finance.

Justin Trudeau has announced plans to apply for a controversial new international infrastructure bank led by China — an initiative Ottawa insists will provide a boost to global and Canadian growth.

The Canadian government made the announcement Wednesday after the prime minister met with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Beijing. Ottawa did not immediately specify how much money it would put into the eight-month-old bank.

Speaking today during an official visit to Laos, President Obama vowed that the US would retain a military presence in the South China Sea on an essentially permanent basis, saying it was necessary to show regional allies of America’s commitment.

Our commitment to your defense is a solemn obligation that will never waver,” Obama insisted, adding that warplanes would continue to fly over the South China Sea, and warships would continue to sail through the area. Pentagon officials have made much of such overflights as “confronting China.”

Maritime claims within the South China Sea are hotly disputed, with the US making a policy of supporting everyone else in claims conflicting with China’s, and urging them to negotiated when the disputes don’t involve China. The US has suggested it is obliged by treaty to militarily support the Philippines in particular in claims conflicting with China.

Mr. Obama is dealing with other headwinds, not least that he is a lame-duck leader in the last five months of his term. Back home, his struggles are viewed through the unforgiving lens of election-year politics. Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee, tweeted that the Chinese snubbed Mr. Obama and that Mr. Duterte called him a “?‘son of a whore.’ Terrible!”

For a president eager to burnish his legacy, the trip has in fact yielded progress on several fronts, most notably climate change. But the miscues illustrate how poor planning, or even plain bad luck, can undermine a president’s performance abroad.

An American weapons expert claims that the submarine missile launched by North Korea last week was identical to China’s JL-1 and argues that Beijing has long been providing weapons to Pyongyang in violation of international laws.

After being poorly received at the airport ahead of the G20 Summit, President Obama created a stir at the summit threatening "consequences" against China while in the country as a guest.

In the wake of another missile launch, President Barack Obama vowed Tuesday to work with the United Nations to tighten sanctions against North Korea, but added that the U.S. was still open to dialogue if the government changes course.

Obama signaled the U.S. would redouble its effort to choke off North Korea's access to international currency and technology by tightening loopholes in the current sanctions regime. Obama called the series of ballistic missile launches "provocations" that flouted international law and would only lead to further isolation.

"We are going to work diligently together with the most recent U.N. sanctions," Obama told reporters after meeting with South Korean President Park Geun-hye. "We're going to work together to make sure we're closing loopholes and make them even more effective."

In an interview with National Interest, Admiral John Richardson claimed that US aircraft carriers could operate unscathed within China and Russia’s anti-access area denial (A2/AD) zones boasting about the long standing naval superiority of America’s Pacific Fleet.

Today, the G20 meeting in Huangzhou, China concluded. Russian President Vladimir Putin spent the day in very intensive meetings and negotiations. Let us briefly examine some of the issues discussed at the bilateral meetings.

Vladimir Putin can feel avenged. At the G20 summit in China, he attained everything that he was denied two years ago following the events in Crimea, and was paid special attention and respect by other leaders. The special attitude towards the Russian president was evident even during the concert program in which the only foreign melody played in addition to national ones was “Swan Lake” by Tchaikovsky. Meanwhile, the Chinese made Barack Obama feel like he is henceforth a “lame duck.”....

The Air Force and Marines have both declared the Joint Strike Fighter ready for combat, and Congress is now forking over billions of dollars a year to acquire what is slated to become a fleet of 2,400 jets.

Yet the world’s most expensive fighter bomber still doesn’t work properly and may never perform as advertised. That’s not “dezinformatsiya” from Russian “information warfare” specialists. That’s the official opinion of the Pentagon’s top weapons evaluator, Michael Gilmore.

Roughly at the same time as China's infamous snub of Obama's arrival at Hangzhou for the G-20 summit, when the G-20 host nation's delegation first made sure there was no staircase for Obama to exit the plane and descend on the red carpet; forcing the president of the world's most powerful nation to use an emergency exit...

... followed by a shouting match by a Chinese official who unleashed on the US Press corps and national security advisor Susan Rice, blocking them from crossing a blue rope holding back press and saying "This is our country. This is our airport", Chinese officials had no such problems greeting Russian president Vladimir Putin with full honors, whose arrival - on the red carpet - took place without a glitch.

The G20 meets in tech hub Hangzhou, China, at an extremely tense geopolitical juncture.

China has invested immense political/economic capital to prepare this summit. The debates will revolve around the main theme of seeking solutions “towards an innovative, invigorated, interconnected and inclusive world economy.”

G20 Trade Ministers have already agreed to lay down nine core principles for global investment. At the summit, China will keep pressing for emerging markets to have a bigger say in the Bretton Woods system.

But most of all China will seek greater G20 backing for the New Silk Roads – or One Belt, One Road (OBOR), as they are officially known – as well as the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

So at the heart of the G20 we will have the two projects which are competing head on to geopolitically shape the young 21st century.

So then the hard question must be answered. We can imagine the scene in the Situation Room. The diplomatic and strategic advisers remind the President that this is not about someone else’s islands or waters: America’s credibility and the future of its leadership in Asia is on the line. Stepping back and allowing China to defy Washington’s warnings would fatally undermine the entire U.S. position in Asia, and reinforce China’s. The stakes are therefore enormous, and argument for military action is correspondingly clear.

Student activists have been the big winners in Hong Kong elections, just two years after they led pro-democracy protests against Chinese rule that stunned Beijing.
A record turnout in Sunday's vote helped sweep the newcomers into office, most notably Nathan Law, a 23-year-old who was said to have been behind the protests in 2014.

Former President Bill Clinton approved the sale of sensitive U.S. missile technology to China following donations from a key missile manufacturer to his campaign, in a move prescient of the Clinton Foundation’s “pay-to-play” activities.

Bernard Schwartz donated about $1.5 million to the Democratic Party and Clinton’s 1996 campaign for reelection between 1994 and 1998. Schwartz, who was at the time chairman of Loral Space & Communication Ltd., seems to have used his influence to persuade the Clinton administration to switch the licensing authority for missile exports from the Department of State to the Department of Commerce, as the latter was more vulnerable to political influence.

As tensions simmer over disputed areas in the South China Sea, China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will sign an agreement to mitigate the risk of armed confrontation in the region, the Philippines foreign ministry confirmed on Friday.

The U.S. military has won only a single major war since the end of World War II (the Gulf War of 1990-91). But U.S. military contractors continue to win major budget wars in Congress nearly every year, proving that no force on earth can resist their lobbying prowess and political clout.

Consider the steady march to victory of the biggest single weapons program in history — the planned purchase of advanced Lockheed-Martin F-35 jets by the Air Force, Navy, and Marines at a total projected cost of more than $1 trillion.

The Air Force and Marines have both declared the Joint Strike Fighter ready for combat, and Congress is now forking over billions of dollars a year to acquire what is slated to become a fleet of 2,400 jets.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is to hold a series of high-profile meetings with Turkish, British and Saudi leaders, among others, as part of his schedule for attending a summit in China in early September.

Sandy Phan-Gillis, a US businesswoman of Chinese descent arrested in March 2015 in China, has been charged with spying, China's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday, in an announcement that threatens to further deteriorate US-China relations.

Engineers in China unveiled the new Transit Elevated Bus, a form of public transit that allows private vehicles to travel beneath it.

To understand the Big Picture, we need to go back to 1890 when Alfred Mahan, then president of the US Naval College, wrote the seminal The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783. Mahan’s central thesis is that the US should go global in search of new markets, and protect these new trade routes through a network of naval bases.

That is the embryo of the US Empire of Bases – which de facto started after the Spanish-American war, over a century ago, when the US graduated to Pacific power status by annexing the Philippines, Hawaii and Guam.

US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin will likely speak at the G20 Summit next week in Beijing despite having no formal meeting scheduled, US National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes said in a press briefing on Monday. "We don’t have a bilateral meeting scheduled; however, it has been the case at each of the summits that they both attend that we usually try to find an opportunity for the two leaders to spend some time together, usually to focus on Syria and Ukraine," Rhodes told reporters. "So, I don’t know that they’ll have a formal bilateral meeting, but I expect that they’ll have an opportunity to speak on the margins of the G20."

With ongoing tensions in the South China Sea and on the Korean peninsula, Beijing has deemed its third-generation surface-to-air missile combat-ready. In the latest sign of a new arms race between the United States and China, Beijing’s Air Force has announced the completion of a new missile defense system. © AP PHOTO/ CHIANG YING-YING Taiwan to Indict Three Soldiers Over Accidental Missile Launch Toward China "Through innovation, ground-to-air defense troops are able to deal with far-range, medium-range and short-range missiles which can come in on high, medium and low altitudes," PLA Air Force spokesman Shen Jinke said in a statement released on China’s Defense Ministry website, according to the International Business Times.

The secretive communist government of Laos, a country with a population of less than 7 million, rarely causes a ripple on the diplomatic circuit. And yet its sleepy capital will spring to life next week when global leaders arrive for an Asian summit.

Barack Obama will be among them, making the last push of his presidency to 'rebalance' Washington's foreign policy toward Asia, a strategy widely seen as a response to China's economic and military muscle-flexing across the region.

The might of Laos' giant neighbor to the north is hard to miss in Vientiane: wealthy Chinese driving SUVs overtake tuk-tuks sputtering along the roads and Chinese-backed hotels sprout from noisy construction sites in one of Asia's most low-rise cities.

But diplomats say Obama could be pushing on an open door in Laos, thanks to a change of government there in April.

Recently released emails appear to further show a direct connection between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, including efforts to get foundation donors seats to an official lunch with Chinese President Hu Jintao.