-Caveat Lector- From http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000927104956079&rtmo=Vwgsr83K&atmo=rrrrrrNq &pg=/et/99/4/8/wbom408.html ISSUE 1413 Thursday 8 April 1999 Fears of missile shortage after cuts By Ben Fenton in Washington Unmanned US spy plane is shot down AMERICA's armed forces are showing the strain of defence spending cuts following the end of the Cold War, experts said yesterday. There have been signs that the United States Air Force is running out of cruise missiles and the US Navy will very soon have to start using second-rate ship-launched missiles. On Tuesday, commentators expressed alarm when the Pentagon suggested that it would have to finish flying in tents for refugees before it could airlift Apache helicopters into combat positions. Under the National Military Strategy, America should be able to fight two regional wars at once. US forces are committed in another combat role in Iraq. The air force is helping to impose north and south no-fly zones and 2,000 US troops are based in Kuwait. But a shortage of spare parts has meant that there are not enough combat-ready aircraft in Turkey to enforce the northern exclusion zone, sources said yesterday. The navy has also had to redirect its carrier Theodore Roosevelt from the Gulf to the Adriatic, where it is to relieve the Enterprise. Rear-Adml Eugene Carroll, deputy director of the Centre for Defence Information, said: "I think we are seeing the first inklings of a shortage of cruise missiles in that we have started using cluster bombs on targets that before would have got a missile. "Also, the first mistake was made yesterday. It looked to me like a whole 'stick' of bombs from an aircraft fell on that house in Aleksinac on Monday. Gravity weapons are always going to fall in the wrong place from time to time." Rear-Adml Carroll said the USAF had fired half of the 100 cruise missiles it had before Operation Allied Force began. He said that the navy would have almost run out of its super-accurate Block Three Tomahawk cruise missiles in another fortnight. "Then they would have to switch to the Block Twos. They have 2,100, but they are not as accurate and prone to mistakes which can be very costly in political terms." Lawrence Korb, a former Assistant Secretary of Defence under President Reagan, said: "Like its predecessors, this administration spends too much on weapon systems and not enough on ammunition." >From http://www.newsmax.com/conference.shtml "America At Risk" NewsMax.com's First National Security Briefing For you, for your families, for your investments When: Saturday April 24, 1999 Time: 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM Place: Los Angeles, California Renaissance Hotel at LAX Airport (9620 Airport Blvd. 310-337-2800) Out of Town Guests: Ask for the $79 Conference Rate Refunds Available Up to One Week Prior to Conference Make Your Reservations Now! From http://www.globe.com/dailyglobe2/098/nation/Russia_s_military_sees_a_Balkan_ opportunity+.shtml Russia's military sees a Balkan opportunity By David Filipov, Globe Staff, 04/08/99 MOSCOW - Remember ''The Peacemaker''? The 1997 Hollywood flick in which a maverick Russian general, disgruntled over the sad state of his once proud country, steals nuclear warheads for Bosnian Serb terrorists? That was the movie. Here is the reality. Today's maverick is Viktor Chechevatov, a three-star general and commander of ground forces in Russia's Far East region, who is convinced that NATO's attacks on Yugoslavia are ''the beginning of World War III.'' No matter how often Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin says Russia will stay away from the fighting, Chechevatov keeps making public calls for Moscow to send arms and men, preferably with him in charge, to fight the American-led alliance alongside the Serbs. At the very least, this is insubordination. But do not look for Chechevatov to be fired, or even reprimanded, anytime soon. Much of the country agrees with Chechevatov when he says NATO's campaign against Yugoslavia poses ''a direct threat to Russia.'' And the Kremlin, which yesterday ordered several more warships into the Mediterranean, may be listening, too. As Russians watch the US-led assault on Yugoslavia, political and military hawks are finding more support for their confrontational policies toward the West than at any time since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. They miss the way the West feared the former USSR, and they want those days back. That poses a number of dangers, analysts say. In the short run, the Kremlin may find itself forced to take an increasingly militaristic line, even as Yeltsin repeats his promise not to let Russia get caught up in the conflict. But there are other forces in the Russian leadership who listen when Chechevatov and other military leaders say that World War III has begun, and that Moscow's best move is to aid the Serbs. Yesterday, Russia's lower house of parliament, the State Duma, voted overwhelmingly for a resolution advising Yeltsin and his government to send weapons and an unspecified military mission to Yugoslavia. Last week, the upper house passed a similar resolution. ''There exists the risk of the military pressuring the civilian leadership for a military reaction,'' said Alexander Pikayev, an analyst for the Carnegie Center in Moscow. ''The political leadership is under greater pressure from the leftist and nationalist opposition, which wants to use the Balkan crisis to come to power.'' Publicly, the Kremlin has so far ignored Chechevatov's call to arms. Meanwhile, hundreds of volunteers have offered to fight alonside the Serbs, thought of by some here as Russia's traditional allies because of the two cultures' common Slav heritage and Orthodox Christian religion. The government has told them to stay home. Yesterday, Yeltsin urged Western leaders to accept a unilateral peace proposal offered by Yugoslavia on Tuesday. Underscoring Moscow's options if diplomacy fails, a naval spokesman said a squadron of warships had set out from the Black Sea base of Sevastopol, Ukraine. Moscow had previously informed Turkey that as many as eight ships, including the missile cruiser Admiral Golovko and several destroyers and frigates, could be passing through the Bosphorus Strait in the next few days. Russia says the ships are heading for exercises in the Mediterranean, but it is clear they are intended to send a message to NATO as well. Already, Moscow has sent an unarmed electronic reconnaissance ship to monitor the conflict. The Liman entered the Adriatic Sea yesterday, where it will begin relaying information about NATO air strikes back to Moscow - and possibly to the Serbs, although Russia denies that Belgrade will get direct information from the spy ship. The danger of all these vessels is not that some Russian officer might go freelancing, like that maverick general in ''The Peacemaker,'' and act unilaterally to escalate the conflict. Military analysts say that even given the deterioration of the Russian armed forces over the past decade, the command structure among field officers is still too rigid to allow that. But analysts say Russian ships pose a threat just by being there. ''The presence of Russians in the area of the conflict could lead to an uncontrolled escalation of the situation,'' Pikayev said. Since the bombing began, commentators have underlined how weak Russia's military has become, implying that the Cold War-style rhetoric coming out of Moscow, and such acts of suspending ties with NATO, are no more than symbols because Russia can go no further. In a way this is true. Russia's military owes $1.5 billion in back wages, heating bills, and rent. According to the the newspaper Segodnya, it fields only 550 warplanes and 1,200 helicopters, 15 times less than 10 years ago and about 14 percent of NATO's 12,500 jets and helicopters. Those Black Sea fleet warships, like many vessels in Russia's four fleets, have not had exercises in years. But Russia still has 6,660 nuclear warheads. Senior generals have warned that Moscow would use them if it felt threatened, and the Northern Fleet test-fired a ballistic missile in exercises last week. But what does ''threatened'' mean? Russia's defense minister, Igor Sergeyev, has said that the events in Yugoslavia are worrisome because they ''could happen anywhere.'' Many Russians worry NATO could use Kosovo as a precedent to intervene in Russia's breakaway province of Chechnya, or in any of a number of hot spots along proposed routes for oil pipelines out from the Caspian Sea. ''The bombing of Yugoslavia could turn out in the very near future to be just a rehearsal for similar strikes on Russia,'' Chechevatov wrote in a recent letter to Yeltsin. Nearly two-thirds of Russians agree with the general, according to a poll by the Moscow-based Public Opinion Foundation. Meanwhile, the nuclear winter in Russia's relations with the West means that no significant arms-control initiatives will be signed anytime soon. More disturbing is the cancellation of an exchange program that would have had US and Russian nuclear weapons officers in constant contact at year's end to prevent any launches as a result of Year 2000 computer troubles. Someone is happy about what the Balkans crisis may do for Russia's military: defense factories and military leaders for whom reduced spending on the army has been a disaster; officers who for the first time in years are holding exercises; officers like Chechevatov, who recently completed exercises that ''had nothing to do with the Balkans'' in which his troops practiced shooting down Tomahawk cruise missiles. These people ''are partying 24 hours a day,'' in the words of Russian defense anlyst Pavel Felgenhauer. Parliament has already called for increases in defense funding, although it is hard to say where the money will come from. The Soviet military once enjoyed the lion's share of spending, but the rest of the country lived in relative squalor as a result. A long-term danger posed by the hawks' increasing influence is that political moderates, and those who favor constructive relations with the West, are finding their voices drowned out by what one legislator, Alexi Arbatov, called ''the feeling of helpless rage'' experienced by many Russians. This may be the lasting legacy of the Balkan conflict for Russia. This story ran on page A01 of the Boston Globe on 04/08/99. � Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ A<>E<>R The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority. -Thomas Huxley + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
