ashton carter

Former Defense Secretary Ash Carter told CNN on Thursday that he thinks the Obama administration could have done more on the problem of North Korea’s nuclear program.

Speaking to French reporters this week, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad said he was “ready to negotiate everything” in an upcoming round of peace talks surrounding the six-year-old civil war in his country, including potentially stepping down as head of state.

The operation to liberate the Islamic State “capital” of Raqqa, Syria, has continued to advance, with the U.S. Department of Defense announcing a new deployment and coalition forces confirming the destruction of roads out of the city to trap Islamic State terrorists in.

The month-old operation to rid the Iraqi city of Mosul of the Islamic State terrorist group continues, with Iraqi officers confirming nearly 1,000 jihadi deaths since it began. The tedious street-by-street assault has left a sea of bodies in its wake, however, and civilians demanding the government do something to clear the streets of blood.

The government of Turkey has warned that it is prepared for a ground invasion of northern Iraq if the Marxist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) does not vacate its camps in Sinjar. Turkey, present in Iraq against the wishes of Baghdad, has been training Kurdish Peshmerga militia units near Erbil, south of Sinjar.

U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson confirmed Wednesday that the Navy will continue to execute operations in the South China Sea and has no intent to leave the region, despite a relentless onslaught of Chinese propaganda urging America to eliminate its presence in the region entirely.

Anti-American protesters stormed KFC locations in at least eleven Chinese cities this weekend to protest a ruling against China’s South China Sea claims at the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague, a verdict Beijing claims Tokyo and Washington manipulated in tandem.

Speaking to NPR, Philippine political experts have expressed concern that the Obama administration’s support for their territorial claims in the South China Sea will evaporate, comparing the situation to President Obama’s long-abandoned “red line” in Syria.

A state-run Chinese newspaper has run an editorial calling the governments of Japan and the United States the “eunuchs” of new Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, following a humiliating loss for Beijing at the Hague over its claims in the South China Sea.

President Barack Obama is forcing the Pentagon to repeal its ban on transgender service members, meaning U.S. soldiers will soon be serving under the command of cross-dressing soldiers.

President Barack Obama’s Department of Defense (DOD) is expected to lift the ban on transgender people openly serving in the U.S. military on July 1, reports USA Today, citing unnamed defense officials.

Secretary of Defense Ash Carter has been busy making bad decisions that are damaging our military, such as allowing women to join rough combat arms outfits where they will be killed disproportionately.

Vice Foreign Minister Akitaka Saiki summoned China’s ambassador to Japan early Thursday morning to lodge a protest against the passage of a Chinese navy ship through the contiguous zone near the Senkaku Islands, a Japanese territory over which China claims sovereignty.

The Chinese military has once against performed an “unsafe” intercept of an American aircraft in the Pacific region, with a Chinese jet reportedly flying towards the reconnaissance aircraft at an unreasonably high speed and risking crashing into it.

(Reuters) China rebuffed U.S. pressure to curb its activity in the South China Sea on Sunday, restating its sovereignty over most of the disputed territory and saying it “has no fear of trouble.”

President Barack Obama’s visit to Vietnam, in which he announced the end of an embargo on arms sales to the southeast Asian country, is an attempt to destabilize the region that exposes Washington’s lack of interest in human rights, according to Chinese state-controlled media.

Navy Commander Eric Rasch, formerly executive officer of Coastal Riverine Squadron 3, was removed from his post on Thursday. The Navy Times describes him as “the first officer to be publicly disciplined for errors that led to 10 sailors being captured by Iran after getting lost in the Persian Gulf” on January 12.

Iran would drown U.S. warships if they pose a threat to the Middle Eastern country, warns a commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy.

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) stands against “any terrorist group” that attacks Turkey, a Pentagon spokesperson indicated to Breitbart News.

The U.S.-backed Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in northern Syria is aligned with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a terrorist organization, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter told a Senate panel, echoing Turkey’s position on the relationship between the two groups.

The Chinese government has sent folk singer Song Zuying to Fiery Cross Reef, a disputed territory in the South China Sea, to perform patriotic songs and begin a tour of the region titled “The People’s Army Advances.”

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden made a surprise visit to Iraq on Thursday, the first in nearly five years, in an effort to bolster the American-led coalition fight against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).

Pentagon officials confirmed to The Wall Street Journal that they had canceled a “freedom of navigation” exercise planned for April that was intended to make a statement against China’s growing colonization of the region.

The Chinese government is fighting off protests from American officials that it landed a military plane on Fiery Cross Reef, a disputed territory both Vietnam and the Philippines claim, alleging the flight was necessary to save a worker having a medical emergency.

The Obama administration has authorized the deployment of 200-plus additional troops to Iraq, which would bring the total number already there to more than 4,000.

During a visit to the Middle East, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter called on the Gulf oil states to help Iraq battle the Islamic State and rebuild from the devastation left by ISIS.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter paid his second visit in five months to the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis, on station in the South China Sea, this time in the company of Philippine Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin.

The Pentagon has announced that American forces will conduct surveillance patrols with the Philippines “regularly” in the South China Sea, as Defense Secretary Ashton Carter concludes his trip to Manila to assert America’s commitment to protect the Philippines from Chinese expansionism in the region.

New satellite images show the Chinese government has added fighter jets to its fleet in the Paracel Islands, a South China Sea chain that Vietnam and the Philippines claim. This development comes as U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter lands in Manila to show his support for the Philippines against Chinese expansionism in the region.

Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter will visit a U.S. military site near disputed territory in the South China Sea this week, according to a senior U.S. official that described the visit as “a message to the region about our commitment to peace and stability there.”

Chinese media outlet Xinhua has confirmed that a third illegally constructed lighthouse in the South China Sea is now fully operational. The lighthouse is located on the artificial island formerly known as Subi Reef and equipped with “automatic identification systems” that significantly expand China’s surveillance capabilities.

General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a news briefing on Wednesday that the decision to put more boots on the ground in Iraq should come within the next few weeks.

Chinese President Xi Jinping welcomed an envoy of the head of the Vietnamese Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong, to Beijing this week, urging Vietnam to seek strengthened ties with China after years fighting over territory in the South China Sea have exacerbated tensions between the two nations.

A new think tank report asserts that China has begun building a high-frequency radar installation in the contested Spratly Islands of the South China Sea, which would greatly expand its surveillance capabilities in one of the most trafficked trade routes in the world.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will be in the United States from Tuesday to Thursday, meeting with his counterpart, Secretary of State John Kerry, and other high-level officials on everything from North Korea’s growing belligerence to China’s own provocations in the South China Sea.

New satellite images indicate that the Chinese government has placed “an advanced surface-to-air missile system” on illegally constructed artificial islands in the South China Sea, threatening both the nations who claim that territory and any passersby navigating those international waters.