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Unprecedented Reductions to National Security

Although Republicans have added dollars to the President’s defense budget proposal,it still represents a 2016 defense  budget that has been slashed by over $100 billion under his administration.

It comes at a time when Russia has dramatically ramped up its military spending, for both conventional and nuclear weapons.  Indeed, Moscow, for the first time in history, now leads America in strategic nuclear weapons, and maintains a ten to one advantage in tactical nuclear weapons. It has returned to cold war bases, including those in the Western Hemisphere.

Additionally, China has become a military superpower, equalling American technology on land, sea, and space, and with growing numbers.

Asymmetric challenges from terrorists and the growing military power of Iran and North Korea add to the threat level.

Contrary to popular belief, only about one-sixth of  federal spending is military related. As noted by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities  “18 percent of the budget, or $615 billion, paid for defense and security-related international activities. The bulk of the spending in this category reflects the underlying costs of the Defense Department. The total also includes the cost of supporting operations in Afghanistan and other related activities, described as Overseas Contingency Operations in the budget, funding for which totaled $92 billion in 2014.”

You will need purchase cheap cialis http://respitecaresa.org/parents-corner/all2/ to take the medicine in proper dose and time. Jaiphal is stated as an levitra samples respitecaresa.org excellent brain booster as it can increase concentration and can relieve stress. Erectile dysfunction cheap levitra this page being a prominent sexual problem can be caused due to multiple reasons. This discovery falls under the categorized section of thiazolidinedione class of drug that can be together prescribed with hypoglycemic to treat diabetes buy cheap levitra respitecaresa.org effectively. Since 1976, entitlement spending has significantly exceeded defense spending.

Those seeking to reduce the defense budget, despite the threats, maintain that the U.S. spends more than its adversaries.   However, the comparison is inaccurate. As a democracy with an open press, American defense spending is widely and fairly accurately reported.  In nations such as Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, the publicly stated military budgets substantially understate actual spending. In China, for example, the People’s Liberation Army receives vast sums from profits from interests it holds in allegedly private companies.

Comparative cost factors also come into play. The Council on Foreign Relations  notes that “If military budgets were compared in a way that reflected varying personnel costs, U.S. military preeminence would appear smaller than it does using straightforward comparisons based on market exchange rates.”

As the nuclear threat to the American homeland has increased dramatically, programs to protect from an atomic assault have been cut or eliminated.  According to the Heritage Foundation, “President Obama has cancelled some of the most promising missile defense programs, including the Multiple Kill Airborne Laser, and Kinetic Energy Interceptor…the Administration cancelled  the SM-3 Block IIB interceptor that was supposed to protect the U.S. from a long range ballistic missile threat…”

Defense spending should be grounded on real need based on the actual threat level, not on competing political considerations or ideology. Unfortunately, that is not how the current White House has proceeded.

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Left, Right unite to oppose TPP

An unusual alliance of progressives and conservatives, consumer advocates, unions and small businesses successfully sounded an alarm about the Trans Pacific Partnership legislation [TPP] so vigorously advocated by the White House. Members of the President’s own party were instrumental in at least temporarily stopping passage of the measure.

A particular sore point has been the secretiveness surrounding the proposed law, with the precise language of the legislation kept from the public and even staff members of the elected officials who are asked to vote on it.

The White House maintains that:

“TPP will be the greenest trade agreement in history — protecting oceans and combating wildlife trafficking, illegal fishing, and illegal logging across a vast swath of the globe. The countries in the agreement produce $2 out of every $5 of global economic output. And big economies have big impacts on the environment, so this standard really matters.

“TPP will also raise labor standards across our trading partners and help raise wages here at home. That’s because enforceable requirements on minimum wages, hours of work, and occupational safety and health are at the center of the agreement. And that’s because trade jobs are good jobs, paying up to 18 percent more on average than non-trade jobs.

“TPP will be good for our national security, too — increasing America’s presence in the fastest-growing region of the world and bolstering the economic vitality at home that underpins our military strength. Failure to get TPP over the finish line could relegate us to a future where we sit on the sidelines, letting China write rules with lower standards that diminish our relevance in Asia.”

Senator Jeff Sessions  (R-Alabama) states that “The White House still refuses to answer even the most basic questions about [the TPP].

“These are the questions the White House will not answer:

  • Will it increase or reduce the trade deficit, and by how much?
  • Will it increase or reduce employment and wages, and by how much?
  • Will you make the “living agreement” section public and explain fully its implications?
  • Will China be added to the TPP?
  • Will you pledge not to issue any executive actions, or enter into any future agreements, impacting the flow of foreign workers into the United States?

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“Proponents of the Trans-Pacific Partnership want us to fast-track it before we know what’s in it. They want us to trust that enforcement will occur, even though it has not in the past. They want us to trust that the President won’t utilize this broad new avenue to expand foreign worker programs, even though his record demonstrates that he will. They want us to trust that this time is different.

“One of the most important areas TPP proponents ignore is the issue of non-tariff barriers. The barriers to U.S. exports in this century are increasingly not conventional tariffs, but non-tariff barriers like currency manipulation, backdoor taxes, and a variety of state-sanctioned obstacles to market entry. Under the TPP, the U.S. will lower its tariffs but competitor industries will retain their substantial non-tariff barriers. This is what Nucor Steel’s Chairman Emeritus, Daniel DiMicco, means when he talks about “unilateral American trade disarmament” and the “enablement of foreign mercantilism.” In other words, poorly-negotiated trade deals, instead of opening new markets for our industries, tilt the playing field even further in their competitors’ direction. The result is not freer global trade, but more mercantilist market domination.

“Millions of Americans, and their communities, have lost good-paying jobs because of our government’s chronic failure to confront currency manipulation and a variety of other illicit trading practices. Perhaps that is why Americans, by a 70-30 margin, say the last two decades of trade deals have benefitted other countries rather than our own. What message should that send Washington?…

“The recent trade deal with our strong ally South Korea, we were told, would boost our exports to them by more than $10 billion, but in reality increased them by less than $1 billion—while South Korea’s imports to us soared more than $12 billion, widening our trade gap with them considerably.

“While fast-track provides negotiating objectives, they are not enforceable in any meaningful way: if the Trans-Pacific Partnership or any future trade deal ignores those objectives, it is unlikely Congress will do anything about it. Practically speaking, the negotiating objectives operate as mere suggestions. And, as the Congressional Research Service explains, the fast-tracked deal “would supersede existing U.S. law” and result in the U.S. being “bound by international law,” arbitrated by a global tribunal.

The rare agreement between groups supporting nearly polar opposite perspectives highlights the numerous concerns and unanswered questions about Mr. Obama’s trade goals.  Extensive inquiries have been raised by many about the reality behind the President’s descriptions.

Salon points out:

“Saying, as the White House has, that the deal would support ‘an additional 650,000 jobs’ is not true. This figure came from a hypothetical calculation of a report by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, which the Institute itself said was an incorrect way to use their data. ‘We don’t believe that trade agreements change the labor force in the long run,’ said Peter Petri, author of the report, in a fact check of the claim…

“Recent trade deals have in fact increased the trade deficit

“On the controversial topic of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), where corporations can sue sovereign governments for monetary damages for violating trade agreements that hurt the company’s “expected future profits,” the White House has engaged in a shell game. They say, “No trade agreement is going to force us to change our laws.” But the point of a corporation suing the United States or any trade partner is to put enough financial pressure on a government to force them to alter the law themselves. So ISDS doesn’t “cause” a change in law only in the narrowest sense. Even third-party countries have curtailed regulations in reaction to ISDS rulings, as New Zealand did with their cigarette packaging law, awaiting the outcome of a dispute between the tobacco industry and Australia (a suit that continues despite an initial victory for Australia)…

“The White House assumes that the only thing America cares about with ISDS is the upsetting of our own laws. So they’ve stressed that the U.S. has never lost an ISDS case. This is irrelevant. What ISDS does is offer bailout insurance policy to multinational corporations. If they run into discrimination or regulatory squeezing by a foreign government, they can use an extra-judicial process to recoup their investment. Workers screwed over by trade agreements have no ability to sue governments; only corporations get this privilege…

“Weak ‘rule of origin’ guidelines could allow China to import goods into TPP member countries without any tariffs, while freed from following any TPP regulations…”

Public Citizen believes the measure would encourage an exodus of American jobs, undermine food safety by requiring the import of products that don’t meet U.S. safety standards and impose limits on food labeling, undermine efforts to contain medicine costs, undermine Wall Street regulation, curtail internet freedom, and provide more power to international corporations.

Phyllis Schlafly, writing in WND  worries that “TPP will betray us….The text of TPP emphasizes that it is a “living agreement.” Translated out of bureaucratese code language, that means the text of TPP can be changed in major and minor ways by executive action after Congress OKs the document. …TPP will facilitate the expanded movement of foreign workers into the United States. TPP opens the door to more waves of illegal immigrants and allows Obama to make future changes without any congressional oversight or expiration date. Kevin L. Kearns of the U.S. Business and Industry Council calls this “another power grab” that will let Obama and his employees rule by executive action. By not calling TPP a treaty (even though it involves 12 countries on three continents), the globalists induce the Senate to abandon the 67-vote threshold for treaty ratification …

“Fast track turns over some of our authority as a sovereign nation to international authorities, which is a major longtime goal of the internationalists, the so-called kingmakers, and big business lobbyists. The code language that hides this in TPP is the statement that calls it a “living agreement.” This means Obama and his executive-branch pals can take all kinds of actions Article I of the U.S. Constitution reserves to the legislative branch, such as ratifying or changing a treaty and controlling immigration…”

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Coal question reviewed

The NY Analysis of Policy & Government reviews the questions surrounding This viagra sale canada curative agent is not an aphrodisiac. In my career span of 25 years as NLP trainer, I have observed several mistakes being made by NLP students which have given viagra no doctor them repeated failures and not gaining their full potential. Often an autistic child has problems in learning in normal ways viagra ordering and has problems in articulation. Obesity Affects the Uterine cialis tadalafil canada Lining: An obese woman is at a greater risk of developing abnormal thickening of the uterus lining. the future use of coal.  Read the report, below.

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NY Analysis reviews China’s growing military power

The NY Analysis of Policy & Government overview of China’s Erectile purchasing viagra dysfunction counseling often requires sufficient knowledge on the medical field so make sure to seek for help regarding this issue. All the ingredients naturally found in Karlovy Vary healing mineral water can aid cheap cialis those with chronic pancreatitis. Sites like tinder or matchmaking are in demand and supply process of the medication. overnight shipping cialis Its functions as a tool make it an buy generic viagra Click This Link important note to yourself that if faced any issue then it must be treated. growing military muscle has been published today.  Read it below.

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Lower gas prices vital for families, U.S. trade

Even though gas prices are increasing for the summer driving season, some politicians and big government advocates continue to allege that lower gas prices are a bad thing. Many elected officials are trying to capitalize on the reduced prices by raising fuel taxes.

The voters disagree. One example was Michigan’s Proposition 1, which was soundly defeated on May 5. Lawmakers supporting the measure claimed it was essential to repair transportation infrastructure; opponents pointed to the harm it would do to the economy.

Those supporting the concept that high prices encourage investment say decreased prices at the pump will hurt the stock market, but opponents point to the harm it does to middle class Americans.

Recently, the Wall Street Journal noted that “American families are enjoying a level of economic relief they haven’t experienced in six years—and it is largely attributable to the recent slide in gasoline prices… Families are saving … at the pump and are paying less for groceries and everyday goods thanks to lower transportation costs. Considering that median family incomes are 3% lower than they were six years ago, this is a welcome reprieve for the middle class. Politicians, on the other hand, see an opportunity to ask Americans for more of their paychecks. On Feb. 4 Democrats in the House of Representatives, led by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D., Ore.), introduced a bill that would raise the federal gas tax by 15 cents—nearly doubling the current 18.4-cent-per-gallon tax. Meanwhile, legislators and governors in more than 15 states are pursuing gas-tax hikes of their own…While the various proposals differ, one thing is the same: None should be passed into law.”
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The CATO Institute reports that “we cannot say that the drop in oil prices is bad for the economy. We could unambiguously say that it is good if we knew that all individuals are participating in the gains—or, at least, that no individual experiences a loss. An alternative way to say that the price drop cannot be bad is to say that it is potentially good. If there is more of all goods, everyone can potentially benefit.”

Increasing energy production, which would support lower prices, is not only advantageous for American families, but vital for the suffering U.S. trade imbalance.

According to Trading Economics.com  “The United States recorded a trade deficit of 51367 USD Million in March of 2015. It is the biggest trade deficit since October 2008…The United States has been running consistent trade deficits since 1976 due to high imports of oil and consumer products…”

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The slippery slope of free speech restrictions

The baseball season is well under way, and there haven’t been that many fights in the stands, except for those fueled by too much beer.  Despite the passion fans have for their teams, a general agreement about the rules—three strikes and all that—helps keep order.

Unfortunately, throughout the nation, respect for the most important rules—the Constitution, the Bill of Rights—appears to be breaking down, and the result is that Americans seem more split apart than they have been since the Civil War.

The recent event in Texas, where a group exercised their free speech rights by holding an event in which cartoons that some found offensive were displayed, is a key case in point. Whatever the cultural or artistic merits of the illustrations, or lack thereof, the organizers had every right to express their opinions through the drawings. In the aftermath of an attempt by extremists, which ISIS claims to have been responsible for,  to shoot up the gathering, many in the media essentially said that the First Amendment should have been subordinated to the dictates of political correctness, blaming the citizens more than the terrorists.

There was a time when the First Amendment was considered the most sacred of all American rights, limited only in situations such as falsely yelling fire in a crowded theater. The list of exceptions has grown. In a Congressional Research Service report  issued last September, legislative attorney Kathleen Ann Ruane wrote:

You are advised to keep fiber rich foods reduce the risk cheap viagra of cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, and cancer. They become more sensitive to diet, substance abuse, stress, and rest. cheap generic cialis levitra vs viagra However, every man must try to satisfy his partner. One major benefit to buying online is the availability of generico cialis on line on registration .On activation of a cialis it will be naturally removed out of your body. “…the Court has decided that the First Amendment provides no protection for obscenity, child pornography, or speech that constitutes what has become widely known as ‘fighting words.’ The Court has also decided that the First Amendment provides less than full protection to commercial speech, defamation (libel and slander), speech that may be harmful to children, speech broadcast on radio and television (as opposed to speech transmitted via cable or the Internet), and public employees’ speech. Even speech that enjoys the most extensive First Amendment protection may be subject to “regulations of the time, place, and manner of expression which are content-neutral, are narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest, and leave open ample alternative channels of communication.” Furthermore, even speech that enjoys the most extensive First Amendment protection may be restricted on the basis of its content if the restriction passes ‘strict scrutiny’ (i.e., if the government shows that the restriction serves ‘to promote a compelling interest’ and is ‘the least restrictive means to further the articulated interest’).”

While some topics, such as that which may be harmful to children such as child pornography, are obvious common sense restrictions that even the framers of the First Amendment would approve of, the growing list of exceptions is worrisome.   An example of how far down this road some in government are willing to travel to limit free speech is troubling.  Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) tried to limit paid political speech through a bill in the U.S. Senate. Colleges seek to restrict students seeking to hand out copies of the Bill of Rights to just a few places on campus. Scientists who question the concept of man-made climate change are ostracized and silenced by their own colleagues.

For the first time, that great advance in free speech, the internet, is now under the control of a government bureaucracy.

Major challenges to freedom don’t necessarily come with great upheavals. They are more likely to occur bit by bit, bureaucratic rule after bureaucratic rule, until barely the memory of the rights that used to be cherished are left.

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An Odd Presidential Campaign Season

Three more candidates joined what is becoming a crowded presidential field, as Republicans Carly Fiorina, a former business executive, who served as chief of HP computers;  Dr. Ben Carson, a neuro surgeon,  and former governor and TV host Mike Huckabee all joined the race.

Perhaps the most salient question, however, is Hillary Clinton’s campaign status. Despite the complete devotion of her many followers, the reality is she had a disastrous tenure as Secretary of State, low-lighted by the Benghazi debacle in which she intentionally sought to mislead the public about the causes for the attack (she tried to convince America that it was a spontaneous event brought about by a previously unknown video) and the completely failed “reset” with Russia ( which saw Moscow gain an advantage in nuclear and conventional arms, a return to its cold war bases across the planet, and the invasion of Ukraine.)

And there are the scandals.  There is significant  evidence that the Clinton Foundation engaged in a pay to play effort, in which international donors provided extraordinary sums to her organization in return for preferable treatment by the US government.

According to the New York Times, which is generally favorable towards her, “examples include a free-trade agreement in Colombia that benefited a major foundation donor’s natural resource investments in the South American nation, development projects in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake in 2010,”  Even more serious, as reported by Fox News, the unfolding scandal in which a substantial share of America’s uranium, a crucial element in the development of nuclear weapons, was given to Russia occurred under her watch following the donation of two million shares of the company involved to the Foundation.
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As a police detective might say, all this fits the modus operandi of the Clintons.  During husband Bill’s tenure as President, his campaign unlawfully benefited from Chinese cash donations, followed by favorable treatment towards Beijing, including the sale of Cray super computers, which allowed the People’s Liberation Army to move rapidly ahead in technology. President Clinton also signed into law legislation allowing the Chinese to no longer be subjected to annual reviews for trade, which allowed that nation’s sales to the US to skyrocket and caused devastation in the U.S. manufacturing sector.

The Clinton Foundation itself, apart from the international scandals, has a questionable reputation.  Of the 144.3 billion it raised since it was founded in 2001, only 10% has been provided to actual charitable work. The Foundation has been placed on a “watch list” for questionable nonprofits.

Despite all the above, other potential Democrat candidates, such as Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley,  and former Senator James Webb, have failed to gain much traction.

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Taking nuclear assault seriously

The Washington Free Beacon, almost alone among significant American print media sources, reported that two nuclear-capable Russian bombers flew into the U.S. air defense zone in Alaska on April 22. That information is frightening enough.  But further information was even more worrisome.  The U.S. failed to scramble any interceptors to meet the intruders.

Russian nuclear capable craft have repeatedly flown into American air space, and Moscow’s nuclear subs have snuck into the coastlines of Sweden, Finland, and the U.S. gulf coast.

The Scandinavian nations have at least attempted to take measures against the Russian intruders. But the latest information, that no interceptors were scrambled on April 22, raises questions about whether the White House takes the challenge seriously, and whether it understands the dimensions of this clear threat to America’s survival.

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“Nuclear war is the only foreseeable threat to America’s survival in this century, and Russia is the most plausible nation from which a large-scale nuclear attack might originate… The current U.S. strategic posture, which threatens massive retaliation to deter nuclear attack, probably cannot be sustained indefinitely. Some day, in some way, deterrence will break down. Ten nuclear warheads could collapse the U.S. electric grid. Fifty could render every major city uninhabitable. Two hundred might well spell the end of American civilization. Most of the Russian warheads are mounted on long-range ballistic missiles, and Washington currently has no plan for intercepting such weapons if they are launched in large numbers. During the Cold War, U.S. leaders made a deliberate decision to forego strategic defenses of the homeland in order to stabilize the superpower arms race. The current U.S. strategic posture, designed mainly to deter rational adversaries, cannot cope with a wide array of potential scenarios such as irrational leaders, accidental launches or breakdowns in the chain of command. To cope with the full spectrum of ballistic threats to America’s homeland, a layered defense including interceptor missiles and/or beam weapons is required. The system would be costly, but not compared with the value of assets that could be destroyed in a nuclear war. However, current plans call for spending less than one-percent of the defense budget on relevant technologies. The physics of countering large-scale nuclear attacks are daunting but doable. The logical place to begin is by expanding the current Ground-based Midcourse Defense deployed on the U.S. West Coast, which is oriented mainly to threats from North Korea but could be configured to intercept Russian warheads more effectively. Other assets already in the joint force such as the sea-based Aegis combat system could be upgraded to create a nascent layered architecture. A truly robust system would probably require a space-based layer too. If these steps are not taken, there will be no way of protecting America on the day deterrence fails.”

President Obama is well known for his vehement opposition to an adequate Pentagon budget in general—it has dropped precipitously under his watch– and to defenses against nuclear weapons in particular, whether by anti-ballistic missiles, a program he consistently seeks to de-fund, or through the maintenance of nuclear weaponry to serve as a deterrent. He allowed Moscow to gain an advantage in nuclear weapons for the first time in history, and has explored the possibility of further unilateral cuts in the American arsenal.

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Universities get failing grade on free speech

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education report on universities notes that “many … institutions severely restrict free speech and open debate. Speech codes—policies prohibiting student and faculty speech that would, outside the bounds of campus, be protected by the First Amendment—have repeatedly been struck down by federal and state courts for decades. Yet they persist, even in the very jurisdictions where they have been ruled unconstitutional. The majority of American colleges and universities maintain speech codes.”

FIRE’s recent survey of 437 schools found that more than 55 percent maintain severely restrictive, “red light” speech codes—policies that clearly and substantially prohibit protected speech.

The report notes that “colleges’ restrictions on free speech varies by state. In Missouri, for example, over 85 percent of schools surveyed received a red light rating. In contrast, two of the best states for free speech in higher education were Virginia and Indiana, where only 31 percent and 25 percent of schools surveyed, respectively, received a red light rating.”

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Excuses are still being found to limit speech on campuses.  “…FIRE continues to see an unacceptable number of universities punishing students and faculty members for constitutionally protected speech and expression. It is essential that students, faculty, and free speech advocates remain vigilant not only about campus speech codes but also about the way universities may—even in the absence of a policy that is unconstitutional as written—silence or punish protected speech.”

“Of the 437 schools reviewed by FIRE, 241 received a red light rating [most restrictive] (55.2%), 171 received a yellow light rating (39.1%), and 18 received a green light rating [least restrictive] (4.1%). FIRE did not rate seven schools (1.6%). FIRE rated 333 public colleges and universities. Of these, 54.1% received a red light rating, 41.4% received a yellow light rating, and 4.5% received a green light rating. Since public colleges and universities are legally bound to protect their students’ First Amendment rights, any percentage above zero is unacceptable, so much work remains to be done.”

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Recognizing the Russian Threat

As reports of Russian nuclear bombers entering Alaskan air space and Russian submarines intruding into the waters of European nations continue to increase, many have wondered why military leaders have remained relatively silent.

That’s beginning to change. U.S. General Philip M. Breedlove, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, has on two separate recent occasions outlined his growing concern over Moscow’s growing military prowess and aggressiveness. Speaking before the Atlantic Council,  he described Moscow’s “revanchist” attitude:

“Russia’s actions against Ukraine since last year have signaled “a clear end of what I see as two decades of clear Russian struggle over security policy…”  According to the Atlantic Council, Russia is now on a far different course that shifts the relationship between Russia and the West from strategic cooperation to one of strategic competition. This is not a temporary aberration, but the new norm….This is a Russia that recognizes strength and sees weakness as an opportunity.’

Breedlove believes that “Russia is blatantly challenging the rules and principles that have been the bedrock of European security for decades. The challenge is global, not regional, and enduring, not temporary. Russian aggression is clearly visible in its illegal occupation of Crimea, and in its continued operations in eastern Ukraine. But the crisis in Ukraine is about more than just Ukraine. Russian activities are destabilizing neighboring states, and the region as a whole…and Russia’s illegal actions are pushing instability closer to the boundaries of NATO.

You’ve already had Iran and Iraq, Y2K, and September 11th; and you will be living inside a globe that has changed permanently. online viagra mastercard http://davidfraymusic.com/events/davies-symphony-hall-san-francisco/ This condition can be learn the facts here now purchase cialis on line either a permanent impotence or even natural sexual desire enhancers you may use. The website values the financial information of the buyer therefore buy viagra online no orders are taken by phone. Just like the kamagra effervescent tablets you can also check out viagra canada cost for the kamagra oral jelly to treat it. “We cannot be fully certain what Russia will do next, and we cannot fully grasp Putin’s intent. What we can do is learn from his actions… And what we see suggests growing Russian capabilities, significant military modernization, and ambitious strategic intent.

“We also know that Putin responds to strength, and seeks opportunities in weakness. We must strengthen our deterrence in order to manage his opportunistic confidence…”

As Russia has increased its military capability, the West has reduced its’ capabilities. One area outlined by Breedlove concerns intelligence assets. “Since the end of the Cold War, our nation’s community of Russian area experts has shrunk considerably, and intelligence assets of all kinds have been shifted to the wars we’ve been fighting or to understanding potential future threats.

Russian military operations over the past year, in Ukraine and in the region more broadly, have underscored that there are critical gaps in our collection and analysis. Some Russian military exercises have caught us by surprise…”