{"id":199006,"date":"2015-11-10T23:31:05","date_gmt":"2015-11-10T23:31:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=199006"},"modified":"2015-11-10T23:42:57","modified_gmt":"2015-11-10T23:42:57","slug":"u-s-secdef-ashton-carter-implies-russia-china-are-enemies-of-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/u-s-secdef-ashton-carter-implies-russia-china-are-enemies-of-u-s\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. SecDef Ashton Carter Implies Russia & China Are Enemies of U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse<\/span><\/p>\n

INTRODUCTION<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

On Saturday November 7th, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, who had started his career at the Defense Department during the Reagan Administration as an aide to then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, Cold-Warring against the communist nations U.S.S.R. and China, delivered\u00a0a speech<\/span><\/a>\u00a0saying, \u201cWe are in the middle of a strategic transition to respond to the security challenges that will define our future. \u2026 We\u2019re responding to Russia, one source of today\u2019s turbulence, and China\u2019s rise, which is driving a transition in the Asia-Pacific.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

So: what has changed for him in all of that time? The weapons are more advanced; he expressed pride in that. And the former Warsaw Pact nations that were allied with the U.S.S.R. surrounding Russia, have increasingly joined NATO and become Russia\u2019s enemies. (The U.S.S.R. terminated the Warsaw Pact, but the U.S. didn\u2019t terminate NATO; instead, NATO with its former Warsaw Pact members increased from the 16 nations it had when the Soviet Union broke up, to the 28 nations today. And U.S. President Barack Obama and SecDef Carter want to increase that number to 29 by including Ukraine, which is on Russia\u2019s border.) <\/span><\/p>\n

Carter\u2019s speech presented Russia repeatedly as constituting the \u201caggressor.\u201d He actually used this term three times, two of which concerned Russia explicitly: \u201cWe\u2019re taking a strong and balanced approach to deter Russia\u2019s aggression.\u201d \u201cWe are adapting our operational posture and contingency plans as we \u2014 on our own and with allies \u2014 work to deter Russia\u2019s aggression.\u201d \u201cWe are also changing fundamentally our operational plans and approaches to deter aggression.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

None of his usages of \u201caggression\u201d referred to jihadists, nor to the top funders of jihadists, the Saudi<\/span><\/a> and Qatari<\/span><\/a> royal families, respectively the Sauds and the Thanis. Instead, we arm those people, and they then send some of those arms to jihadists in Syria so as to remove from power Syria\u2019s secular pro-Russian President, Bashar al-Assad. <\/span><\/p>\n

Secretary Carter, like his boss President Obama, want Assad to be replaced by the fighters that the Sauds and Qataris are arming. Carter and Obama call these fighters \u201cmoderate Syrians,\u201d though the secular Shiite Assad runs a non-religious government, and all of the fighters against him want a Sunni Islamic state, no secular<\/i> <\/span>state at all. <\/span><\/p>\n

The U.S. government says that it supports democracy in Syria, so long as Bashar al-Assad (whom polls show would win any honest election there) isn\u2019t on the ballot. But when America\u2019s ally the Qatari regime, which funds al-Nusra (al-Qaeda in Syria), hired a polling firm in 2012 to survey Syrians, the finding was that 55% of Syrians wanted Assad to remain as President<\/span><\/a>. Then, as I reported on 18 September 2015, \u201cPolls Show Syrians Overwhelmingly Blame U.S. for ISIS,\u201d<\/span><\/a> and those recent polls were from a British firm that has ties to Gallup. So, it\u2019s clear that any sort of democracy in Syria will be ruled by Assad, not by anyone acceptable to the U.S. Establishment, and that blocking him from the ballot would therefore make a mockery of any such \u2018democratic\u2019 election. <\/span><\/p>\n

However, democracy in any<\/i> <\/span>Islamic state \u2013 as the U.S. and its allies claim to be pressing for there \u2013 is impossible, just as democracy in any<\/i> <\/span>religious state is impossible. (An example of this is America\u2019s \u2018ally\u2019 and $3B-per-year recipient of our foreign aid, apartheid \u2018democratic\u2019 Israel, which still doesn\u2019t even have a constitution, because religious Jews there insist that any constitution must confirm all biblical laws.) It\u2019s impossible because sovereignty in any<\/i> <\/span>religious state rests with the given religion\u2019s \u2018god\u2019 as set forth in its Scripture, and not,<\/i> not even possibly, with \u201cWe, the People \u2026\u201d Democracy is therefore impossible without a strict separation between church and state. But none of the military forces that are fighting against Assad will tolerate such an outcome: they\u2019re all Sunni Islamists. <\/span><\/p>\n

So, there exists an underlying hypocrisy behind the position that SecDef Carter is championing: victory for supposedly some faction of the forces against Assad, and also democracy in Syria.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps after the Soviet Union ended, America got dumbed down so that it\u2019s now the American dumbocracy. Or should that instead be spelled \u201cdumocracy\u201d? Well, whatever \u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

ASHTON CARTER\u2019S SPEECH<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Near the opening of the SecDef\u2019s speech, Carter triumphantly referred to\u00a0America\u2019s victory over the Soviet Union and the breaking down of the wall between East and West Berlin,<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and he said: “for those of us who worked in government during those\u00a0dangerous days, as I\u00a0did beginning in 1981, for Caspar Weinberger \u2014 we\u00a0know how tough that wall\u00a0was to crack, let alone tear down.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He mentioned the connection between Russia and 9\/11:<\/span><\/p>\n

That strength, which Reagan and others helped realize\u00a0\u2014 people like Jim\u00a0Schlesinger, Brent Scowcroft, Bill Perry, and Harold\u00a0Brown, who were all\u00a0mentors of mine \u2014 put the United States in position\u00a0to respond to the day\u2019s\u00a0crises, and take advantage of Soviet missteps.\u00a0It gave post-Cold War leaders\u00a0the power to bring East and West together\u00a0and deepen the principled\u00a0international order. And when we were attacked\u00a0on September 11th, it gave\u00a0America the power to respond.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

That strength and the principled international order were part of the\u00a0inheritance\u00a0I received when I was sworn in as Secretary of Defense\u00a0earlier this year.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

In other words, he suggested that by boosting America\u2019s strategic nuclear forces in response to Russia\u2019s \u2018aggression,\u2019 the U.S. will become better prepared to deal with and overcome jihadist suicide-bombers and Saudi-Qatari-financed jihadist groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda. He intimated that, somehow, there is a sort of dual-use advantage of strategic weapons: their application also against non<\/i>-state enemies. For example, America\u2019s nuclear deterrent forces were useful in our killing bin Laden? Oh, maybe not that one. However, if those jihadist organizations are financed by Arabic royal families (such as bin Laden\u2019s Al Qaeda was)<\/span><\/a>, then those Arabic countries (Saudi Arabia and Qatar especially) are state enemies of the United States; and so, their being hostile toward Russia, as they have been and are, would mean that Russia is, actually, our ally, which then raises the question of why we need to arm against an ally (Russia) in order to be more effective against jihadists (the countries that are owned or controlled by those royals \u2013 \u2018our\u2019 allies). <\/span><\/p>\n

So, SecDef Carter\u2019s reasoning seems a bit shady here. But the United States would not have a crooked man occupy such a straight office as he does. So, one must give him the benefit of every doubt \u2013 like the press and the American public gave George W. Bush and his \u2018Defense\u2019 Secretary Donald Rumsfeld before the press reported that they had been liars<\/span><\/a>. (Come to think of it: did<\/i> <\/span>the press report that? Is the press reporting it? Will<\/i> the press report it? Those people clearly and incontrovertibly were<\/span><\/a> liars. The press refuses to provide the documentation<\/span><\/a> that it was lies and not \u2018merely\u2019 manipulated intelligence. And the press is repeating that performance with Obama\u2019s lie<\/span><\/a> that it was Assad\u2019s forces and not the forces that Obama supports who were behind the August 2013 sarin gas attack which Obama is claiming to be the reason he\u2019s helping the anti-Assad forces \u2013 who actually perpetrated it<\/span><\/a>.)<\/span><\/p>\n

He went on to assert that America, by virtue of\u00a0its exemplary troops and command-structure,<\/span><\/a>\u00a0has maintained the \u201cinternational order\u201d and attracted foreign \u201cpartners\u201d in such a way as to lead the world in the fight against jihadists, and he then implied that Russia is trying to impede America\u2019s war against jihadists, and that China, is also doing that, in some way (which he declined to identify). He said:<\/span><\/p>\n

At the most elemental, human level, our\u00a0troops are attractive partners,\u00a0they perform and conduct themselves\u00a0admirably. I see this, and hear this from\u00a0foreign leaders, around the\u00a0world. They make us proud.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Despite that widespread appeal, some actors appear intent on eroding\u00a0these\u00a0principles and undercutting the international order that helps\u00a0enforce them.\u00a0Terror elements like ISIL, of course, stand entirely\u00a0opposed to our values. But\u00a0other challenges are more complicated, and\u00a0given their size and capabilities,\u00a0potentially more damaging.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Russia appears intent to play spoiler by flouting these principles and\u00a0the\u00a0international community. Meanwhile, China is a rising power, and\u00a0growing more\u00a0ambitious in its objectives and capabilities. Of course,\u00a0neither Russia nor China\u00a0can overturn that order, given its resilience\u00a0and staying power. But both present\u00a0different challenges for it.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

The United States, and the men and women of the Defense Department, know\u00a0that the good that a principled international order has done, and will\u00a0do. But in\u00a0the face of Russia\u2019s provocations and China\u2019s rise, we must\u00a0embrace innovative\u00a0approaches to protect the United States and\u00a0strengthen that international order.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

In Europe, Russia has been violating sovereignty in Ukraine and Georgia\u00a0and\u00a0actively trying to intimidate the Baltic states. Meanwhile, in\u00a0Syria, Russia is\u00a0throwing gasoline on an already dangerous fire,\u00a0prolonging a civil war that fuels\u00a0the very extremism Russia claims to\u00a0oppose.\u00a0\u2026\u00a0Moscow\u2019s nuclear saber-rattling raises questions\u00a0about Russia\u2019s leaders\u2019\u00a0commitment to strategic stability, their respect\u00a0for norms against the use of\u00a0nuclear weapons, and whether they respect\u00a0the profound caution nuclear-age\u00a0leaders showed with regard to the\u00a0brandishing of nuclear weapons.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

He asserted that Russia\u2019s actions are totally unacceptable, and he made clear that the U.S. has done nothing to provoke them:<\/span><\/p>\n

We do not seek a cold, let alone a hot war with Russia. <\/i>We do not seek to make\u00a0Russia an enemy<\/i><\/span><\/a>.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

He makes clear that, in this country’s differences with Russia, Russia alone is to blame. They are the aggressors, he asserts. (President Barack Obama\u2019s\u00a0National Security Strategy 2015<\/i><\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0applies the term \u201caggression” 18 times, and 17 of them are referring to Russia; so, in retrospect, it is clear why Ashton Carter won Obama\u2019s support to become the U.S. Secretary of Defense. The U.S., of course, has no Secretary of War, and especially no Secretary of Offense; the U.S. never invades a foreign country, nor even perpetrates a coup there, unless the action is purely defensive on America\u2019s part. Only Russia and China do things like that.) So: although Russia and China are America\u2019s enemies; SecDef Carter is too gentlemanly<\/i> <\/span>to call<\/i> <\/span>them \u2018enemies’: the United States merely responds to their \u2018provocations,’ like a gentle parent would respond to a child who “brandishes nuclear weapons.”<\/span><\/p>\n

SecDef Carter makes clear that, despite America\u2019s lily-white intent:<\/span><\/p>\n

The United States will defend our interests, and our\u00a0allies, the principled\u00a0international order, and the positive future it\u00a0affords us all.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019re taking a strong and balanced approach to deter\u00a0<\/i>Russia\u2019s\u00a0aggression<\/i><\/span><\/a>, and\u00a0to help reduce the vulnerability of allies and partners.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

We are adapting our operational posture and contingency plans as we \u2014 on\u00a0our\u00a0own and with allies \u2014 work to deter Russia\u2019s aggression, and to\u00a0help reduce the\u00a0vulnerability of allies and partners. The United States\u00a0is accordingly making a\u00a0number of moves in response, many but not all of\u00a0which I can describe in this\u00a0forum. We\u2019re modernizing our nuclear\u00a0arsenal, so America\u2019s nuclear deterrent\u00a0continues to be effective, safe,\u00a0and secure, to deter nuclear attacks and\u00a0reassure our allies.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019re investing in the technologies that are most relevant to Russia\u2019s\u00a0provocations, such as new unmanned systems, a new long-range bomber, and\u00a0innovation in technologies like the electromagnetic railgun, lasers,\u00a0and new\u00a0systems for electronic warfare, space and cyberspace, including a\u00a0few\u00a0surprising ones that I really can\u2019t describe here. We\u2019re updating\u00a0and advancing\u00a0our operational plans for deterrence and defense given\u00a0Russia\u2019s changed\u00a0behavior.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

He is especially concerned about Russia\u2019s provocative actions to expand itself right up to the very borders of NATO, threatening to invade NATO allies and thus invade the U.S. itself; and he describes how the U.S. is dealing with Russia’s expansionist threat:<\/span><\/p>\n

For example in Eastern NATO states <\/i>[the nations that border Russia], we\u2019re\u00a0prepositioning tanks, infantry-fighting vehicles, artillery, and the\u00a0associated equipment needed to participate\u00a0in exercises and also to\u00a0respond to crises and provocation.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019re providing enabling capabilities \u2014 a distinctively American\u00a0characteristic \u2014\u00a0to strengthen NATO\u2019s new Very High Readiness Joint Task\u00a0Force so it can\u00a0respond flexibly to contingencies in Europe\u2019s East and\u00a0South. This innovative\u00a0capability has already become real: in June, I\u00a0visited the VJTF \u2014 its land\u00a0component, that is \u2014 in Germany.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019re taking part in more and different kinds <\/i>[of] exercises with our allies\u00a0to\u00a0improve training and interoperability.\u00a0<\/i>NATO performed admirably in\u00a0Afghanistan<\/i><\/span><\/a>\u00a0and the exercises today focusing on transitioning to newer\u00a0threats that also\u00a0require networked partnership, but very different\u00a0operational approaches. In\u00a0fact, TRIDENT JUNCTURE, the largest NATO\u00a0exercise in 13 years, just\u00a0ended\u2026yesterday. General Breedlove, who is\u00a0here, reports a very successful\u00a0integration of combined U.S. and partner\u00a0Marines, Navy, ground forces and air\u00a0forces exercising against a\u00a0high-end denied environment. Over 4,000 American\u00a0troops participated in\u00a0this exercise.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019re helping strengthen NATO’s Cyber Defense Center of Excellence so it\u00a0can\u00a0help those nations develop cyber strategies, critical\u00a0infrastructure protection\u00a0plans, and cyber defense posture assessments.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

And we\u2019re\u00a0<\/i>providing equipment and training to aid Ukraine\u2019s military as\u00a0it\u00a0confronts Russian-supported insurgents in Eastern Ukraine<\/i><\/span><\/a>. This\u00a0summer I\u00a0spent time with one of our rotational brigade combat teams at\u00a0Graf in Germany.\u00a0They represent a new approach: they\u2019ll fall-in on\u00a0prepositioned equipment,\u00a0conduct live-fire and simulated maneuver with\u00a0partner nations, and improve\u00a0their own readiness and cultural awareness\u00a0through immersion during this\u00a0rotation.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

So we\u2019re doing all this; but, just as Reagan did, we are also taking a balanced\u00a0approach to Russia.\u00a0\u2026 The United States will continue to hold out the\u00a0possibility that Russia will\u00a0assume the role of responsible power in the\u00a0international order, a direction they\u00a0seemed headed for much of the\u00a0post-Cold War era.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

He refers there to\u00a0the time before Vladimir Putin replaced Boris Yeltsin in 2000 as Russia\u2019s leader. That was the time when the United States was saying favorable things about Russia because Russia under Yeltsin was taking its guidance from the United States, people such as Lawrence Summers of the World Bank, and such as his Harvard Economics Department, and George Soros, and other champions of clean and honest, non-corrupt government,<\/span><\/a>\u00a0like we also are now seeing in Ukraine, after\u00a0Obama\u2019s coup<\/span><\/a>\u00a0there in February 2014\u00a0cleaned up that country<\/span><\/a>, and established peace there<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

So: the reason why Russia and China are now enemies of America is that they\u2019re not doing what they are being told to do, by the people who are the experts in democracy, and in honest government, and in everything else that\u2019s of benefit to the whole world, except to nations like or allied with Russia or China, which nations, perhaps, can only be amazed at the extent of America\u2019s hypocrisy, or at the extent to which the American government can bamboozle the American people, and even people in certain other countries<\/span><\/a>, to believe anything the U.S. government says.<\/span><\/p>\n

For example: not once in his speech does Carter use the term \u201ccommunism\u201d nor any sort of reference to it \u2013 the idea that NATO had been established to exist as the democratic alternative to the Soviet Union\u2019s communism and to their Warsaw Pact (which ended in 1991 when the Soviet Union itself did) goes entirely unmentioned and not even hinted at, because he doesn\u2019t want to draw attention to the fact, now being made incontrovertible by Barack Obama and Ashton Carter, etc., that the real goal of the American aristocracy wasn\u2019t actually to end communism and bring democracy there; it was to defeat them and to take control of their oil and other resources. That\u2019s what they\u2019re trying to do in all this, while constantly accusing Russia and China of aggression against NATO \u2013 which lost its supposed reason-for-existence, in 1991, when the Warsaw Pact ended, but still hangs on, in order to extend the American Empire. Why aren\u2019t there boycotts of Western \u2018news\u2019 media, the ones which fail to point out or publish such truths? (Is it because their suckers aren\u2019t reading sites like you now are reading, the few honest sites that exist in the West?)<\/span><\/p>\n

Russia and China use such crude propaganda-techniques (sometimes even extending so far as truth, which perhaps they think actually sells things), so that it is clear that Ashton Carter has a lot to teach them. He\u2019s hoping to teach them these lessons to Russia and China with better bombers, and “new systems for electronic warfare, space and cyberspace, including a few\u00a0surprising ones that I really can\u2019t describe here.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That will educate Russian and China not to continue with their “brandishing of nuclear weapons.”<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

CARTER\u2019S BASIC MESSAGE<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Ashton Carter\u2019s message is Peace Through Strength: the only way to establish peace is by building and deploying more and better weapons, and by insulting \u2018enemy\u2019 nations without calling them \u201cenemies.\u201d Our enemies are the nations that are \u2018provoking\u2019 \u2018peaceful\u2019 nations: provoking the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Qatar, all of our allies. After all, Saudi Arabia, right now, is using our marvelous weapons in Yemen, to establish peace there. By using our weapons, those kindly Saudi rulers are providing jobs for American workers. It\u2019s the only way to keep the world as peaceful as it is: it\u2019s the American way.<\/span><\/p>\n

He said in his speech, \u201cWe all remember President Reagan\u2019s calls for Moscow to tear down the Berlin wall and for \u2018peace through strength.\u2019 His foreign policy, and approach to the Soviet Union, was both strong and balanced.\u201d (Perhaps Carter was there paying homage to the \u201cFair and Balanced\u201d \u2018news\u2019 reporting at Fox \u2018News\u2019 Channel, where the type of thinking, such as he expressed, is routinely being pumped to its viewers.)<\/span><\/p>\n

This is how to prevent Russia from engaging in \u2018provocations,\u2019 such as their defending themselves and preparing for an ultimate existential attack: WW III. Russia refuses to accept America\u2019s magnanimous help. Russians are so uncouth that they need to be terrorized into submission to the civilized United States. For example, on October 19th, Bloomberg News bannered, \u201cU.S. Approves $11 Billion Saudi Buy of Lockheed Littoral Ships\u201d<\/span><\/a>, and reported that, \u201cThe Pentagon has notified Congress of a planned sale to Saudi Arabia of as many as four Littoral Combat Ships made by Lockheed Martin Corp. for $11.25 billion, as the U.S. works to bolster defenses of its Gulf allies.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

The Saud family wants these ships so as to be able to kill Russians in Syria and to assist the jihadists whom the Sauds want to grab that country. This is \u2018Peace Through Strength.\u2019 So are the American bombs that the Saudi Air Force are dumping on Yemen to kill the evildoers there. Unfortunately, George Orwell\u2019s 1984<\/i> <\/span>somehow missed that one, \u2018Peace Through Strength,\u2019 but America\u2019s war-marketers don\u2019t. After all, they\u2019re paid to produce for their clients, and this is very much a \u2018free market\u2019 operation the U.S. runs.<\/span><\/p>\n

The American elite\u2019s strategic motivation, \u2018Peace Through Strength,\u2019 is so admirable \u2013 to the idiots who trust liars such as the American elite<\/span><\/a>. And to U.S. \u2018defense\u2019 contractors, it\u2019s nothing short of inspirational (not to mention profitable; after all, \u2018Greed Is Good\u2019). These people are real professionals, and no one can top their marketing expertise. That\u2019s the reason why there are all of those proposals in Congress to cut the government to the bone, with that remaining bone being the \u2018defense\u2019 establishment. The rest of the government is the portion of it with the \u2018waste, fraud and abuse.\u2019 It\u2019s dispensable in \u2018the one indispensable nation\u2019 as President Obama calls it<\/span><\/a> (implying that every other<\/i> <\/span>nation is<\/i> <\/span>dispensable); and he states this repeatedly, sometimes even to the military<\/span><\/a>, so that they\u2019ll know that every nation they\u2019ll attack will be<\/i> <\/span>\u2018dispensable.\u2019 This Commander-in-Chief has their back. He knows that they\u2019re the muscle that gets the job done for America.<\/span><\/p>\n

They\u2019re the muscle that\u2019s attached to the bone. And, of course, the bone is the equipment: it\u2019s the weapons. That\u2019s firms such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, etc.<\/span><\/p>\n

All we really need is the bone. It\u2019s so clean and honest. It\u2019s not \u2018waste, fraud and abuse.\u2019 That\u2019s why it\u2019s the foundation of The American Empire. Aristocrats everywhere know how important that<\/i> <\/span>is. It produces the bullets and bombs to kill the bad guys, and get the job done, for America, and for the world<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s so patriotic! It\u2019s so noble; it\u2019s the ultimate Pax Americana<\/i>. And it\u2019s so realistic: it recognizes that the only way to sustain the peace is by means of constant war, to establish a stable world order, with the one indispensable nation firmly in control of it \u2013 everywhere, and not only<\/i> <\/span>in Syria.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thank you, Ashton Carter, for your inspiring speech.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse INTRODUCTION On Saturday November 7th, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, who had started his career at the Defense Department during the Reagan Administration as an aide to then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, Cold-Warring against the communist nations U.S.S.R. and China, delivered\u00a0a speech\u00a0saying, \u201cWe are in the middle of a strategic transition to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":199089,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,461,1622,18],"tags":[4483,115,30,1035,1037,59,524,987,754,523,49,76,40,1024],"class_list":{"0":"post-199006","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-editorials","9":"category-featured","10":"category-latest-news","11":"tag-assad","12":"tag-barack-obama","13":"tag-big-brother","14":"tag-daily-news","15":"tag-interview","16":"tag-military","17":"tag-russia","18":"tag-russia-today","19":"tag-syria","20":"tag-ukraine","21":"tag-usa-news","22":"tag-warfare","23":"tag-white-house","24":"tag-ww3"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}