Our Homeland Is Not a Sanctuary
The U.S. “homeland is no longer a sanctuary,” according to the four-star general in charge of both U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command.
Peer-level adversaries are probing U.S. defenses in multiple domains, and the continental United States is well within their sights.
“We’re in a changing security environment,” O’Shaughnessy said. “We used to think about the sanctuary we had with oceans and friendly countries to our north and south, but that’s changing with adversaries that are actually able to reach out and touch us now.”
The concern falls in line with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’ new National Defense Strategy, which prioritizes peer-level adversaries as greater threats than lower-end insurgent forces like those seen in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade.
These peer-level foes are Russia and China, according to O’Shaughnessy and Mattis.
Anyone surprised by this? Anyone? Bueller? Nah. Didn’t think so. Nothing new to see here. Move along.
Frankly, the ‘reach out and touch us’ notion isn’t new, either, since Cuba and Krushchev had that “thing” going on in 1961 with Fidel Castro and there was the very annoying Cuban missile crisis and US Navy blockade in October that year.
Oh, also, SecDef Mattis says that Russia did sanction the 2016 election meddling and he has outlined proper protections for the upcoming midterm elections here: https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/08/07/mattis-says-russia-sanctioned-2016-election-meddling-outlines-protections-for-midterms/
Just thought you’d like to know that Mad Dog has it on his plate.
Category: Historical, Politics
It sure is a sanctuary according to the dem liberals because this is how we are going to get our voting block; from the borders crossings to the MS 13 members whom we all adore.
See, this is where the word ‘sanctuary’ is warped into meaning something it does not.
The wetbacks coming in illegally have their own definition of ‘sanctuary’, which is a corrupted version of ‘safe place’.
It is not what is meant by the article’s use of ‘sancutary’, meaning ‘safe from harm because of -whatever- protects us’.
My understanding of “sancutary’ was returning to the real world from theater.
It was as if CONUS had giant walls around it and no enemy could touch me.
Not so anymore.
But I do have a “safe place” in mind.
“There is no Sanctuary.”
– Logan 5
“The 80’s called, they want their foreign policy back”… didn’t someone the left idolizes say that a while back??? think the leftist media or anyone else will bring that up??? nah, that would require journalistic integrity…
I remember the Cuban missile crisis, as a child in Houston. My parents very matter of factly informed us that Houston was a target because of the oil refineries.
I lost the illusion of security from foreign threats very early.
I grew up 10 miles from a “ground zero” target city, with a large railyard, a Caterpillar factory (still there), electronics factory, tire factory, and a grain processing plant that turned corn and soybeans into, among other things, alcohol and still does. It also had two hospitals, one of which is now the largest hospital in the center of the state, equipped for every possible emergency, and also doing substantial research in connection with CDC.
Even better: now I’m 3.5 miles from a major Navy and Coast Guard base.
I know what you mean, Graybeard
I grew up in NJ about 45-50 miles as the crow flies from NYC, their was a NIKE AA missile base in the less populated area at that time in the town where I grew up, it was part of the NYC air defense ring, till about 1967, + some of the NIKES were armed with a low yield nuke warhead, plus of course doing the duck and cover routine from the Cuban missile crisis onward at school till about 1965-66, so yeah I understood at an early age, the USA has its vulnerabilities, that’s why I enlisted in the USAF at a time that “military service frowned upon and for losers” by people who are very liberal in their mindset of my generation(boomer) the old saying comes to mind “a leopard never changes its spots”
the NYC air defence was called the DEW Line which covered the East coast. Their was a Nikey base up in Queens south of the Whitestone Bridge and another out in Lido Beach LI which is now vacant and was built a few hundred feet south of Reynolds Channel. Silos are filled with water the last time I looked which was around 1982 or so. My friend was on the Radar picket ship USS Guardian ARG 1 in 1955 and they patrolled out in the Atlantic looking for the Russian Missles and bombers. Guardian was an old Liberty ship.
Navy’s Second Fleet was recently reactivated to counter Russian activity in the Atlantic.
Washington Times Link
So the Cold War never really ended.
It has simply been in hiatus, right?
Think we’ll see a missile base being built in Cuba before long?
“Think we’ll see a missile base being built in Cuba before long?:
Doubtful. Russia now has missiles with plenty of range to hit just about anywhere in the US, so there’s no need for medium range ones. For example, their ballistic missile submarines don’t have to leave port to hit targets here.
https://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=105453
“So the Cold War never really ended.”
I think it did, until Russia could re-organize as a federal, semi-presidential republic, a deeply flawed system. Now they’re back to their old tricks. They have to be taken seriously, but in actuality Russia now is a shadow of its former self, all hat and no cattle. Their major export is energy either in oil or gas, and the market has not been kind to them. When Trump gets massive amounts US energy products to Europe, Russia’s income generator will wither. This will force Putin to the bargaining table, and we all know Trump lives and breaths that.
Ditto.
I saw some place that we’re sending 3,000 troops to Norway. Was that this year? It seems like something is going on, but nothing to worry about. I’d like to not worry. My paternal grandmother lived in a city with an Air Force base, surrounded by Minuteman Missiles. We used to go to the air base for dinner when we visited her. It was part of SAC, I think.
Not really. Putin is just trying to bully his way around Europe, and distract his subjects from their problems. They miss the old days when the USSR was a superpower.
These days Russia is half the size, half the population, and one-third the GDP. The US Army is bigger than the Russian Army right now. Russia is not an existential threat. An opponent or competitor, yes, but not a threat. I’ve said this before, but we have more in common with Russia than China.
This doesn’t mean we should cuddle Putin to our bosom, but we do have certain common interests.
The so-called “interference” in the 2016 elections amounted to yet another Russian disinformation campaign, consisting mostly of social network ads and fake accounts touting a candidate. Ironically enough, there were nearly as many pro-Hillary accounts as there were pro-Trump accounts.
The thing to remember is that Russia doesn’t care who gets elected, as long as confidence in our system of government (and trust in voting) is degraded.
The only reason we see anything about this particular story is that the Democrats are desperate to get Trump out by “any means necessary.” A lot of them really do think Hillary won the election (popular vote, y’all) and contribute to Russia’s goal.
The trick is NOT to drink the kool-aid. Don’t over-react to the stories. Makes you wonder how many of the “Deep State” stories are Russian disinformation plants. That kind of paranoia would suit them just fine.
I wonder if Prepositioned Ship Squadron 1 will come back too. All we have now are MSC cargo ships in Diego Garcia and Korea, but none stationed permanently in the Med, last I sailed for them.
…I spent six years in a Strategic Air Command bomb wing making sure that a squadron of B-52s was ready to burn down the Soviet Union if it came down to that. There hasn’t been a sanctuary here for nearly seventy years, and any one who believes there was simply wasn’t paying attention.
So what they are saying is that there is no place to hide?
OK. Got it.
I’ll start listening to the radio more often.
How hard would it be to turn a regional airport like Rockford (which is expanded enough to land the Concorde) or Waukegan (semi-private but handles jet traffic) or Mitchell at Milwaukee (commercial aviation) into military air bases?
My guess is that it could happen in about 15 minutes, if needed.
The military can use sections of free-way as runways. Some stretches were made with this in mind.
Island Falls to Oakfield Maine.
Over two miles of I-95 runway.
Woodline cut way back and a double u-turn each end.
It didn’t just happen that way.
I’d always heard that the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System was designed to have all overpasses of a height that allowed a main battle tank on a flatbed trailer to pass and had sufficiently long, straight, level sections every few miles to be used as a runway.
Can’t find any definite references at the moment, so maybe it was all just myth. It does make sense. The reason the Shermans were so small compared to other MBTs in use in the ETO during WWII is that they needed to fit onto rail cars for transport.
There is no real reason, other than people out on sailboats, that a small task force could not be brought to Lake Michigan, including a diesel aircraft carrier like the Constellation, for training pilots and sailors and providing a little security for the northern parts of the USA. They could park the flattop at Navy Pier where the dinner cruise ships park and build a few docking berths near the Coast Guard station at Great Lakes.
Our homeland my ass. I detest that term. My country…our country…my nation…our nation. Motherland. Spit. Fatherland. Spit. Homeland. Spit.
‘Ask not what your homeland can do for you….’
‘One homeland, under God, with liberty and justice…’
‘My homeland tis of thee…’
‘This homeland is my homeland, this homeland is your homeland…’
Preach AC. OUR Country- if we can continue to keep it. USA = United States of America; not US of North America, not US of Mexico. US of South America. And yes, we have not been safe from external attack since every body (Russia/China) ended up with ICBMs. All of us baby boomers did the duck and cover, saw the news on the Cuba thing ect ect. Remember the movie Fail Safe we all watched in school. Had a major SAC base 6 air miles from the house and it was surrounded on all 4 sides, 15 – 30 miles out, with the Nike/Hercs with nuclear anti bomber war heads. Another little known fact on the Interstate system was a lot of critical bridges/ choke points had mounts built into the bridge works to hold portable AA launchers. Older friend of mine that built a lot of them in GA gave me that tid bit a good while back. Last of the Nike sites here were closed out late ’60s The whole theory was the B52s weren’t going to make it back here any way and there was no defence against ICBMs. I spent a good portion of my AD in Sergent and Lance Units, knew all about the primary CONUS Targets and the fact that the only defence we had was to put your head between your legs and kiss you ass good bye. Pity that Reagan couldn’t get his whole SDI thing pushed thru. Now we’ve made some progress on that score, but still. Nukes don’t have to be that pin point accurate when you swarm them in. As posted before, bring all of our girls and boys home, beef up & protect carrier assets, defend OUR Country, and if the rest of the world don’t like it ESAD. We have been shat upon and spent trillions of USD on “Allies” that have turned around and stabbed us in the back. American know how has done more to advance civilization and warfare than all the rest combined, the only way they can keep up is either steal it… Read more »
I’ve seen many videos shot by waiting civilians of tanks and armored vehicles and heavy trucks being transported by trains, which gets the civilian crowd kind of wigged out. When you explain to them that it’s less damaging to the roads to put tanks on freight trains, and the transport cost is lower, and it’s just for training purposes, they get less antsy.
However, I think it’s maybe time that the military stuff on freight lines was moved between sunset and sunrise, instead of daytime. Less obvious to the public and makes for less worried remarks.
Yep. Lot’s of freshly painted in desert colors stuff came thru here in 90 for the build up for DS/DS. Most of the tracks came thru at night to the big RR switching yard, while the wheeled units cruised down I-16 to Savannah. Local 48th BDE Commanders got the newsies to down low the trains, while they encouraged folks to line the overpasses for the troops in the wheels. To show the federal control of the Interstate system, GA State Patrol blocked off the big road when the convoys were coming thru and then ran escorts to get them well down the road out of the metro areas.
EVERY YEAR we see pics posted of Reserve and NG Units going up and down the highways as well as refueling at gas stations posted with “Warnings” of the Concentration cams to come and I’ve even seen pics posted by “Experts” of Auto Transport Railcars with “warnings” that they are actually mobile prison cars “built for the upcoming occupation”!
There will never be a shortage of whackos out there.
Well, API, “they” have to complain about. Without that, their conspiracy theories revert to UFOs and alien abductions and that is SOOOO last century now.
If you explain to these people that women learn to drive heavy equipment like dump trucks or MRAPs in the military during these training exercises, and then tell them that when the gals get out, they are (usually) already licensed to drive them and make really good wages working for road and building construction companies, the Fearful Frantic Flibbertigibbets just stare at you. They don’t understand the gap between Reality and Their Fantasies. I think they WANT to be sent to those imaginary camps.
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