U.S. bosses recognize need to scale back social welfare to pay for war

New York Times, 9/23–The first sentence of the report — released over the summer by a bipartisan, congressionally appointed commission — was blunt: “The threats the United States faces are the most serious and most challenging the nation has encountered since 1945 and include the potential for near-term major war.” The threats begin with China… Russia started the first major war in almost 80 years… Iran finances a network of extremist groups… these countries work together, too, sometimes with North Korea… If the U.S. doesn’t do more to deter aggression, living standards in this country could suffer… the warning signs today were similar to those in the run-up to both Pearl Harbor and 9/11 … The report recommended increasing military spending, partly by making changes to Medicare and Social Security… and partly by increasing taxes…

Further election gains for Nazis in Europe

Al Jazeera, 9/29–Austria’s Freedom Party (FPO) is projected to finish first in the country’s general election, ahead of the governing conservatives, underlining rising backing for hard-right parties in Europe… Kickl, a former interior minister who has led the FPO since 2021, seeks to become Austria’s new chancellor on the back of the first far-right national election win in the country since World War II… many people in Austria believe the FPO is controversial due to its Nazi origins. “Their founder was an SS officer and a Nazi minister,” she said, adding that some in Austria do not believe that the party has detached itself completely from its Nazi roots. “Herbert Kickl calls himself the ‘people’s chancellor’, which is a term Adolf Hitler used to describe himself,”  An FPO victory would make Austria the latest European Union country to register surging far-right support after gains in countries including the Netherlands, France and Germany.

Plans for use of nuclear weapons in Europe inch forward

France24, 9/29– The Kremlin said on Sunday that amendments to Russia's nuclear doctrine had been prepared and were about to be formalized, meaning the relevant documents setting out the circumstances in which nuclear arms can be used by Moscow will be updated. President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Wednesday that under proposed changes to the doctrine Russia could use nuclear arms if it was struck with conventional missiles and would consider any assault on it supported by a nuclear power to be a joint attack. In other words, Moscow will consider responding with nuclear weapons if the West allows Ukraine to strike inside Russia with long-range Western missiles… Peskov cited the international situation, escalating tensions near Russia's borders and the growing proximity of NATO infrastructure to them, and what he called the deeper involvement of Western nuclear powers in the Ukraine war on Kyiv's side, as the backdrop for the changes to the doctrine.

U.S. special ops prepping for start of WWIII with China 

Financial Times, 9/13/24—Seal team 6, the clandestine US Navy commando that killed Osama Bin Laden in 2011, has been training for missions to help Taiwan if it is invaded by China, according to people familiar with the preparations. The elite Navy special forces team ... has been planning and training for a Taiwan conflict for more than a year at Dam Neck, its headquarters at Virginia Beach. The Secret training underlines ...  (US) preparations for such an  event. The preparations have grown since 2021, when Phil Davidson, the US Indo-Pacific commander at the time, warned that China could attack Taiwan within six years...As the threat from terror groups has receded, special operations forces have joined the rest of the US military and the intelligence community in intensifying their focus on China. CIA Director Bill Burns told the Financial Times last week that 20 percent of his budget was devoted to China, a 200 percent increase over three years. The Chinese embassy in Washington said that Taiwan was "the very core of China's core interests and the first red line that must not be crossed in the China-US  relationship."