Morning Defense. With Jonathan Topaz NATO DEFENDS ACCURACY OF IMAGES DEPICTING RUSSIAN FORCES ALONG UKRAINE’S BORDER: To prove the satellite photos released yesterday were taken in late March and early April of this year, NATO provided additional photos this morning that show the same areas prior to any military buildup. “The photographs, some dating from 2013, and others from early 2014, show that these areas were unoccupied prior to March 2014,” NATO said in a statement.
Yesterday, NATO released a package of satellite imagery that depicted the location and type of Russian units NATO has observed along the border with Ukraine. Russian officials responded by saying the photos were old and showed an exercise conducted in 2013. — In an op-ed, retired Adm. . — Treasury Secretary Jack Lew tells the Russian finance minister the U.S. is ready to levy “additional significant sanctions” if Russia makes further advances in Ukraine.
WILL THE LCS BUY GET SCALED BACK FURTHER? Military Times.
Inside Defense.com. The DEW Line. After much deliberation we have made the difficult decision to permanently close the FlightGlobal blogs. We are very proud of what we achieved with the blogs, from the excellent contributions of our talented FlightGlobal team to the great commentary and engagement of our loyal FlightGlobal audience. Things move on however and as more of our great content is delivered through flightglobal.com channels and our online subscription service FlightGlobal Dashboard, we haven’t been able to concentrate on these blogs as much as we would like. At War: Notes From the Front Lines. CNN Security Clearance. Julian Borger's global security blog. Checkpoint Washington. Secret défense.
L'intervention française au Mali (opération Serval), qui a démarré de manière fracassante le 11 janvier dernier, était dans les cartons depuis 2009. Une planification de l'état-major, baptisée Requin, prévoyait alors quasiment ce qui advenu cet hiver. Et qui a failli être déclenché à plusieurs reprises sous la présidence Sarkozy... Puis après l'élection de François Hollande, qui juge le dossier malien prioritaire, tout se met en place à partir du 31 octobre 2012. L'offensive des djihadistes en janvier servira de coup de sifflet pour y aller.
C'est ce que racontent deux journalistes du Figaro, Isabelle Lasserre et Thierry Oberlé, qui publient un livre, écrit à chaud et de lecture agréable, sur "Notre guerre secrète au Mali". Attention, il ne s'agit pas d'un récit détaillé des opérations militaires depuis janvier - à la manière de Jean-Christophe Notin sur l'Afghanistan ou la Libye.
Isabelle Lasserre et Thierry Oberlé "Notre guerre secrète au Mali" Fayard, 248 pages, 17 euros. Défense en ligne. Guerre ou paix. Zone Militaire. Armée du futur. Blogs of War. Small Wars Journal. Gunpowder & Lead. Security. (U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice delivers the infamous "talking points") On Wednesday, just days after Congress held hearings claiming that the Obama administration misled the public in the aftermath of the Sep. 11, 2012 attack on an American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, the White House released 100 pages of emails that seem to undermine GOP claims that the White House orchestrated a “cover-up.” The e-mails between the White House, CIA, State Department, Justice Department, and the FBI were part of an effort to draft unclassified talking points for lawmakers to use during media appearances and formed the basis of U.N.
Ambassador’s Susan Rice’s prep for the Sunday morning talk shows. The CIA wrote the first draft of the talking points, before sending it out to the rest of the government. GOP Claim: The Obama administration struck references about Al Qaeda for political reasons. GOP Claim: Obama lied about there being a protest in Benghazi to hide that it was a terrorist attack. DoD Buzz | Online Defense and Acquisition Journal. Defense News. David Pugliese Defence Watch. The Best Defense.