Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Stanislav Smirnov
[REGNUM] Exactly 120 years ago, on March 10, 1905, the largest battle of the Russo-Japanese War ended - the Battle of Mukden. It is generally accepted that the three-week heavy fighting ended with a victory for the Japanese, which provoked a crisis of autocracy, and ultimately its collapse. After all, Port Arthur fell shortly before Mukden, which means the fate of the campaign was predetermined. With a calm and thoughtful analysis, such a dogma turns out to be untenable, conditioned by political considerations.
In essence, this is the point of view of Russia's opponents, which found its most concentrated expression in the interpretations of Vladimir Lenin, and those in turn were declared by Soviet historiography to be the ultimate truth. If the facts contradicted them, so much the worse for the facts.
But before assessing the nature and significance of the key episode of the Russo-Japanese War, let us recall where and how the battle unfolded.
Arrangement of the "figures" and plans of the parties
The Battle of Mukden took place in a space divided by the South Manchurian Railway into two parts: the western plain and the eastern mountainous part. An additional external factor was the weather - in early March there was a severe frost in this part of Manchuria.
By that time, the three Russian armies had 330,000 combat personnel with 1,266 guns and 56 machine guns. Nicholas II entrusted the overall command to General Alexei Kuropatkin, commander-in-chief of "all land and sea forces operating against Japan." The military leader had previously proven himself in the conquest and development of Turkestan and was considered well acquainted with military operations in steppe and desert conditions - in addition to our campaigns in Central Asia, he had a French military expedition to the Sahara to his credit. In 1898-1904, he held the post of Minister of War.
Kuropatkin's troops stood on a front about 150 km long. On the right flank were the positions of the 2nd Army of General Alexei Kaulbars, consisting of the 1st Siberian and the 8th and 10th Army Corps. The left flank was occupied by the 1st Army of Nikolai Linevich - the 2nd, 3rd, 4th Siberian and 1st Army Corps. The defense of the center was entrusted to the 3rd Army of General Alexander Bilderling, made up of the 5th and 6th Siberian and 17th Army Corps. The flanks were covered by the cavalry of General Pavel Mishchenko and a detachment of Colonel Maslov.
The enemy forces numbered 270,000 men, 1,062 guns and 200 machine guns. Emperor Meiji entrusted the command to Marshal Prince Iwao Oyama, one of the creators of the modern Japanese army. Oyama advanced the troops, dividing them into three groups.
Opposing Kaulbars's positions were the 2nd Army of Hakushaku (Count) General Yasukata Oku and the 3rd Army of General Maresuki Nogi. Linevich's troops were also threatened by two large formations - the 1st Army of General Tamemotu Kuroki and the 5th Army of Kageki Kawamura. The center was occupied by the 4th Army of Marshal Michitsura Nozu.
Let us add that Marshal Oyama kept a reserve force in reserve - a division and three brigades with a total strength of 30 thousand bayonets with 170 guns.
Both sides planned to play "on the offensive".
Our command intended to strike a decisive blow at the Japanese left flank. The enemy also expected to strike at the flanks, mainly the right. In general, Oyama, who as a young officer in 1870 personally witnessed the total defeat of the French by the Prussians at the Battle of Sedan, wanted to repeat the same scheme: divide the troops into three parts and encircle the enemy.
But the battle made adjustments to the participants’ plans.
THE COURSE OF THE BATTLE
At first, the Russian command planned an offensive, but intelligence data on the redeployment of enemy forces forced them to change the plan and go on the defensive. The approaches to Mukden were well equipped in engineering terms and included four lines of fortifications - forts, redoubts, lunettes.
On February 6, the advance units of General Kawamura's 5th Japanese Army launched an offensive, attacking the positions of our 11th Infantry Division on the Tsinghechen Heights. Then Kuroki's 1st Army went on the offensive. The actions on our left flank against the troops of Linevich's 1st Army were more of a demonstration, while the main attack was carried out on the right, with the intention of making a deep envelopment and reaching the rear of the defenders of Mukden.
The maneuver was carried out by Nogi's 3rd Army, secretly concentrated on the Taizihe River line and beginning the operation on February 13. The Japanese offensive encountered staunch resistance from Russian troops. Nevertheless, on February 22, at the cost of enormous losses, the enemy managed to approach Mukden to within 12 km from the west with the intention of striking our communications and rear. The 5th Army continued its offensive from the southeast, which created the possibility of encircling the main forces of the Manchurian armies.
In view of this threat, Commander-in-Chief Kuropatkin gave the order to withdraw troops to Telin, where new fortifications were created.
Our Manchurian armies successfully emerged from the emerging "bag". Only the rearguards and supply trains covering the retreat were cut off, which led to the partial capture of personnel from a number of batteries and infantry regiments, in particular, the 55th Podolsk and 241st Orsk.
In the twenty-day Mukden battle, the Japanese command made a desperate and, as it turned out later, last attempt to utterly defeat the Russian army in order to end the war under the dictation of their conditions. However, this did not happen, the "Manchu Sedan" planned by Marshal Oyama failed.
THE AFTERMATH OF MUKDEN. WHO IS DEFEATED?
The enemy's partially successful envelopment of Russian positions had one undoubted consequence - another, albeit not perfectly executed, retreat of the Manchurian armies to previously prepared lines in the area of the city of Sipingai.
At Mukden, the Russian army lost about 90,000 killed and wounded, with another 30,000 missing or captured. The Japanese lost at least 70,000 men, with several hundred captured.
Assessing the outcome of the Battle of Mukden, the modern historian Konstantin Zalessky writes:
“In the Battle of Mukden, neither side achieved a decisive victory, but the Japanese losses were higher; at the same time, the withdrawal of Russian troops and the occupation of Mukden by the Japanese gave Tokyo the opportunity to declare its victory.”
The news of this imaginary victory was carried by the British agency Reuters (London formally occupied a neutral position in the Russo-Japanese War) across the globe and was picked up by numerous enemies of Russia, and then, with their light hand, it firmly entered school textbooks as a historical fact.
A THWARTED BLITZKRIEG OR “CRIMINAL NEGLECT”?
In reality, everything was the other way around.
The "draw" at Mukden was fatal for Japan, because after this battle Tokyo had no forces left to continue the war. Since February 1905, the Japanese army was unable to carry out a single major offensive operation.
At the same time, Russia easily closed the gap that had formed in the personnel of its armies and continued to systematically increase its combat power. It was this circumstance that put the Japanese leadership in front of the threat of an imminent, inevitable defeat and led to the activation of Japanese diplomacy and intelligence - in establishing contacts and making deals with the revolutionary underground with the aim of undermining the Russian rear.
The leader of the left-radical faction in the RSDLP, Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin), “predicted” Russia’s defeat back in November 1904, when the war was just beginning. “ The government will inevitably become entangled in that shameful and criminal Manchurian adventure, which brings with it a political crisis both in the event of a decisive military defeat and in the event of a protracted war that is hopeless for Russia,” wrote the Bolshevik leader from the Geneva exile.
Commenting on the capture of Port Arthur by the Japanese in January 1905, Lenin wrote in an article that became a textbook example in Soviet times:
"The generals and commanders turned out to be incompetents and nonentities. The entire history of the 1904 campaign was, according to the authoritative testimony of one English military observer (in the Times), "a criminal disregard for the elementary principles of naval and land strategy." References to British experts were intended to confirm the general conclusion: defeat in war creates favorable ground for public indignation, and therefore revolution.
But let us ask ourselves: how did things really stand and, in particular, was the military art of the Japanese really so great?
PLAYING WITH NUMBERS
As the Soviet military historian Alexander Sorokin noted in his fundamental 1956 work on the Russo-Japanese War: "The Japanese generals were no higher in military terms than the Russians. This was confirmed at Mukden. Even in a favorable situation, with the passivity of the Russian command, the Japanese generals were unable to accomplish the task set - to encircle and destroy the Russian troops."
Of great importance for the analysis and evaluation of the results of battles and the war as a whole are data on the balance of power between the opposing sides and the extent of their losses.
Most works on the history of the Russo-Japanese War, domestic and foreign, usually cite the same figures. They migrate from one book to another, without being questioned or critically analyzed.
However, there are grounds for such doubts, if only because the data used by the authors on the number of troops and the size of the losses of the Japanese army are based primarily on the data of its own command. As the researchers note, the Japanese military initially sought to hide information on the number of their armed forces and losses, while at the same time publicizing deliberately distorted statistics that were advantageous to them.
Such data were published or transferred to the allies in a confidential manner and immediately became public knowledge, being carried around the world by wire agencies and influential British media such as the London Times or the Reuters agency. They were also disseminated by the Russian press.
In reality, the picture was quite different, as indicated by the fact that official Japanese figures often look contradictory and unconvincing. This circumstance was noted by members of the military-historical commission of the Russian General Staff, the authors of a nine-volume work on the history of the war, published in 1910.
They used Japanese data on numbers and losses (for lack of other data), but with serious reservations and often refutations.
Thus, analyzing the official data of the enemy on the number of killed and wounded in the Battle of Mukden (41 thousand people), the commission came to the conclusion that they were underestimated by more than half, while the real amount of bloody losses of the Japanese army at Mukden was no less than 67,500 people.
The table provides data on losses in the main battles of the Russo-Japanese War, taken from the publication of the military-historical commission of the Russian General Staff, supplemented by figures from the Great Russian Encyclopedia (Liaoyang, Port Arthur, “for the entire war”).
Let us emphasize that the figure for the loss of our armies at Mukden (89,423 people) includes 29,330 people taken prisoner, while the bloody losses in this battle were, as stated above, less than the Japanese: 60,093 people against more than 70,000, and it is significant that the Japanese command reported losses of only 41,000 people.
It should also be noted that, while the total losses of both sides were equal throughout the war (270,000 people), as reported by the Great Russian Encyclopedia, the number of those killed in the Japanese army was significantly greater than in the Russian: 86 thousand people versus 50 thousand.
Soviet historian and professor at the General Staff Academy Nikolai Levitsky provided more detailed figures for total losses. According to his data, the total number of Japanese army officers killed and hospitalized wounded and sick amounted to 689,000 people, while "Russia's total losses in people for the combat front, including those killed, wounded, missing, and evacuated due to illness," did not exceed 400,000 people.
If we add to the above that during the war the population of Japan and Russia was 45 million and 140 million people, respectively, then it becomes clear why already in the spring of 1905 the Land of the Rising Sun persistently asked for peace.
In light of all this, both the Japanese victory in the war and our supposedly “crushing” and “shameful” defeat are nothing more than political speculation, a malicious myth.
NOT AN INCH OF LAND, NOT A RUBLE OF REPARATIONS
The Battle of Mukden and the naval battle in the Tsushima Strait are entrenched in the public consciousness as the main events of the "lost" war with Japan. However, Mukden was not a rout, and Tsushima did not play a major role, since the fate of the campaign was decided on land.
All the retreats of the Russian army have a simple explanation: the numerical superiority of the Japanese, not only in the initial phase of the war, when their army had a huge strategic advantage and a threefold superiority in forces, but also in the subsequent period (Liaoyang, Mukden), when this superiority was maintained despite the arrival of reinforcements from the European part of Russia throughout 1904.
The very fact that offensive operations require a significant superiority in forces (and all the Japanese battles were offensive in nature) proves that they had such an advantage up until Mukden. Under these conditions, the strategy of retreating and avoiding a decisive battle until the Russian forces had gained an undoubted advantage was completely justified.
The build-up of these forces proceeded at a rapid pace from the beginning of 1905.
Our combat power grew rapidly, while Japan's steadily declined. Our defeats were conditional, if not imaginary: the Russian Manchurian armies were never surrounded and destroyed. While "losing" individual battles, Russia won the war as a whole.
This explains why Tokyo eventually asked for peace, and its Western patrons (England, the USA) did everything to ensure that peace was achieved as quickly as possible. In Portsmouth, Russia essentially spoke to its enemy from a position of strength. Nicholas II's concessions were minimal: not an inch of Russian land (except for half of the already lost Sakhalin), not a ruble of reparations.
It is not without reason that in Japan the results of the war were perceived as a defeat. It would have been even more crushing (in view of the changed balance of forces) if internal and external enemies had not managed to ignite revolutionary unrest in the rear of warring Russia. But this is a separate topic.
[RedState] On March 7, 2025, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche — on his second day in office – sent a written notice of termination to Liz Oyer, Pardon Attorney in the Department of Justice. The Pardon Attorney is a “career” position in that it is not an office that requires a presidential appointment that is confirmed by the Senate. The Pardon Attorney is appointed by the Attorney General, but the position is in the “Senior Executive Service.” These are the top management positions just below the presidential appointees in all federal agencies.
Oyer posted the written notice she was given on her LinkedIn page. It reads in part: “This memorandum serves as official notice that you are removed from your Senior Executive Service (SES) position of Pardon Attorney, Office of the Pardon Attorney, and from federal service, effectively immediately.”
The Office of the Pardon Attorney serves mostly in an “advisory” role. It receives pardon applications from current federal inmates as well as those who have already served their sentences. The Pardon Attorney investigates the circumstances of each case and forwards a recommendation to the president as to whether a pardon or other form of clemency, such as a sentence commutation, should be considered. Part of this process involves consulting with the prosecutorial entity that handled the case – sometimes, there is information about the defendant in the case file that is not necessarily in the court records.
Liz Oyer was appointed as the Pardon Attorney by Merrick Garland in 2022. Oyer was not a long-time DOJ career employee – she spent most of her career as an assistant federal defender in the District of Maryland. Prior to that, she was a partner in the firm Mayer Brown in D.C., so she is a veteran of Big Law, having gone to Georgetown as an undergrad and Harvard Law School.
But there was a noteworthy aspect of her dismissal that was reported by the Wall Street Journal the day after her firing – she was immediately escorted from the building by security.
This is done when there is an ongoing investigation that the individual is likely unaware of, and those conducting the investigation want to preserve all electronic records that might be available on a computer and cell phone. Asking her to leave immediately prevents any attempt to delete such records.
As readers will recall, over the course of the final month of the Biden administration, there were several controversial episodes involving the granting of pardons and/or clemency by Joe Biden. He gave a pardon to his son Hunter that covered any criminal activity over a 10-year (plus) period going back to 2014. He commuted the death sentences of all federal inmates on “Death Row” — except for three. He granted pardons/clemency in approximately 2,500 cases, including Leonard Peltier, convicted for the 1975 murder of two FBI Agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
But what might be of most interest to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche are the “preemptive” pardons Biden issued on his last day in office, given to other Biden family members, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Ret. Gen. Mark Milley, and the House members and staff who served on the January 6 Special Committee. President Trump had stated an intention during the campaign to look into the allegations of influence peddling by members of Biden’s family, some of whom had testified before the House Oversight Committee examining the foreign sources of income received by the family during his two terms as vice president.
Normally, the issuance of a presidential pardon is a “non-justiciable” act. The power to issue pardons rests exclusively with the executive branch as set forth in the Constitution, Article II, Sec. 2, Clause 1. It is “non-justiciable” in the sense that Article III courts do not have jurisdiction to review a grant of a presidential pardon or another form of clemency, so there is no clear avenue through which to challenge the validity of a pardon.
But two issues have now arisen that might provide a basis for an inquiry even though there remains uncertainty as to whether there are any avenues available to seek a remedy.
The first is the now well-publicized cognitive decline and onset of dementia that was evident in Biden’s public appearances for more than two years. This is reflected in the exchange recounted by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA), who recently described a conversation with Biden over the suspension of approvals for liquid natural gas exports to other countries around the world. When the subject was raised, Biden said to Johnson that he never suspended those exports even though he clearly did so – as announced by the White House – in January 2024. This raised the issue of whether Biden was aware of what others in the administration were doing in his name.
The second issue that has arisen is an ongoing analysis of the use of an “autopen” to sign official documents with a reproduction of Biden’s signature. Use of an autopen is not controversial. It would be a physical impossibility for a president to sign every piece of paper that requires a presidential signature.
But autopen signatures are easy to detect under examination. The primary indicator is that with autopen signatures, the writing instrument never leaves contact with the paper – except it does so very cleanly between the two names. Further, there is no variation between autopen signatures as they are produced with finely calibrated computer-controlled movements of the writing instrument.
The combination of these two factors leads to the question of whether a presidential pardon bearing an autopen signature is valid if Biden was unaware such pardons were being issued in his name. Is the power to issue pardons something that can be delegated by a president if it is exercised without his actual knowledge as to how that delegated power was used?
The records of the Office of the Pardon Attorney could produce relevant evidence on at least two key issues – were any of the controversial pardons issued in the waning hours of the Biden administration the subject of any review or recommendation by the Pardon Attorney? If not, that increases the likelihood that officials in the White House exercised the authority by going around the process for review and recommendations that were in place. The question as to why they would do that then becomes relevant to possible criminal intent – to hide what they were doing.
The second issue would arise from any evidence of communications between the White House and the Pardon Attorney regarding the more controversial pardons. This would be particularly true regarding the “preemptive” pardons given to individuals for the purpose of impeding any efforts by the incoming Trump administration to investigate those individuals – including the decision-making behind the investigations of Trump himself as part of the “lawfare” waged against him since the summer of 2016.
To the extent there were discussions that could be characterized as being in preparation to corrupt the pardon process for the benefit of select insiders who were already mentioned as possible targets of the incoming administration, could such actions fall within the scope of various “obstruction of justice” statutes? That would be a basis to open a grand jury investigation and begin gathering evidence with the tools that would provide. This investigation wouldn’t be about the pardons and the people who received them, as it would be about the process by which they were issued.
There is almost no doubt that the Trump DOJ is going to explore these issues and the question of whether any avenues of investigation remain open to them, notwithstanding the pardons. They may also test the pardons themselves by alleging they were invalidly issued if there is evidence that White House aides acted on their own initiative and Biden was unaware.
[Federalist] For more than 50 years, despite voters’ moral and economic objections to funding the baby-killing industry, Planned Parenthood has benefited from the flow of American tax dollars. The 119th Congress, in conjunction with the Trump administration, has a chance to rectify that by defunding the abortion behemoth once and for all.
The last time a GOP trifecta had a chance to help eliminate taxpayers’ roles in the abortion industry’s schemes failed when Republican Sen. John McCain voted against the majority of his party’s plans to undo the fallout caused by Obamacare in 2017.
Eight years later, the GOP once again controls the House, Senate, and the White House, which means they are adequately equipped to remedy Republicans’ previous mistake and ensure Planned Parenthood is no longer a multi-million dollar benefactor of tax dollar disbursements.
Most members of the red party claim they are pro-life, so they shouldn’t have a problem voting to dismantle the flow of federal funds to the industry responsible for killing countless unborn babies on moral grounds.
#4
I'm so old I remember when Planned Parenthood was all about family planning and contraception. The abortion thing was sold as a last resort, not an alternative to using birth control.
#2
You mean the people who want to turn mosquitos into biological weapons right after talking about how 2/3rds of the world's population needs to die?
The people who push the mass movement of military age males into a region while simultaneously having the local government spend tax money to feed, cloth, and shelter them so all they have to do is be military age males?
[FoxNews] Medicaid spending has spiked over $200 billion in five years. Reform needs to be a centerpiece of DOGE cuts
In 10 years, the United States is on course to add $20 trillion to the national debt, setting the total sum owed by American taxpayers at over $56 trillion. Every year we spend in the red, interest on the debt continues to accumulate, until by 2051, when interest alone will be the largest line item in the federal budget. Put simply, we are on a collision course with a total financial crisis, and Congress may only have a handful of chances left to turn back. To prevent a total collapse of the U.S. dollar and give the American people the opportunities they deserve, lawmakers must reform Medicaid. To do anything less borders on malfeasance.
While the urgency of our nation’s debt crisis is lost on many, cutting waste, fraud and abuse has been a priority of President Donald Trump’s administration since day one. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Elon Musk have already uncovered billions of dollars in waste. From excessive Politico Pro subscriptions to Democrat pet projects overseas, taxpayers have been totally robbed.
But, even if DOGE meets its quota for cuts and the freezes on wasteful federal grants aren’t dragged out in litigation, these savings won’t scratch the surface of what’s required to save America from its looming debt crisis.
For lawmakers who claim to be on board with cutting the waste, fraud and abuse — and delivering on Trump’s historic mandate — this is it. Nothing you do in the next two years will come close to the importance of implementing the $880 billion required in savings to programs under the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s jurisdiction.
We are not asking you to slash Medicaid, only turn back the clock and reverse its explosive expansion in the last few years that has put it on an unsustainable course.
In the last five years, federal Medicaid spending has skyrocketed from $409 billion in 2019 to $618 billion in 2024, a 51% increase. Despite being 60 years old, a third of Medicaid’s growth has occurred in those same five years. And in the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office projects that Medicaid will cost more than $1 trillion annually, rivaling the size of Saudi Arabia’s current economy.
When Obamacare introduced an entirely new class of able-bodied adults to Medicaid, the program exploded, and the federal government took on the majority of the costs. Under President Joe Biden, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) withdrew 13 waivers for Medicaid work requirements, once again dramatically expanding the program and costing taxpayers billions.
Medicaid was never meant to be this expansive.
Medicaid was intended to assist vulnerable populations like the disabled, pregnant women, children and people in poverty. Today, able-bodied, working-capable adults are on course to become the largest subgroup on Medicaid.
Nationwide, there are an estimated 24.6 million able-bodied, working-capable adults on Medicaid, 60% of whom report no earned income. Coupled with the Biden administration’s unilateral expansion of food stamps, the federal government is effectively discouraging a substantial portion of the able-bodied American population from seeking employment altogether.
The "safety net" has become a full-blown poverty trap, keeping Americans in an endless cycle of dependency and diverting resources from those who truly need help. In some states, higher provider rates for expansion enrollees have created an explicit financial incentive for healthcare providers to discriminate against traditional enrollees. Single moms, infants and the disabled are being pushed aside in favor of able-bodied adults without dependents.
Continued on Page 47
#1
This forgets to mention that the largest population group is now into retirement age. We knew this would hit back in the 70's, yet congress did nothing for decades. Tell congress to stop inter agency borrowing and just maybe programs like this and social security will survive. But congress wants to keep the panic going so they can take their millions and run.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
03/11/2025 1:12 Comments ||
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#2
They keep trying to tie this with age-related Medicare requirements. It's not. Once you turn 65, you're basically REQUIRED to join Medicare
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/11/2025 1:30 Comments ||
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Posted by: Frank G ||
03/11/2025 2:00 Comments ||
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#4
Once you turn 65, you're basically REQUIRED to join Medicare
Why? I understand that employer insurance stops coverage once employees can be shoved over to the government plan, but can one not buy private insurance out of pocket, or even pay for expenses out of pocket without getting insurance — what do rich people do who don’t want to be limited by whatever an insurance company refuses to cover?
#5
It's not about rich TW. Back in the day when I was 55 and self employed a policy for myself alone would be around $3K/month. Granted, good policy but hardly affordable. Ten years later I have no idea what the same policy would cost.
Medicare is a good plan with the different parts added, and it's wealth based after Part A.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] A Boeing E-4B plane in the skies could be an ominous signal of impending doom as the vessel is designed to be deployed ahead of a deadly nuclear attack.
Nicknamed the 'doomsday plane' because of it's ability to survive a nuclear blast, America's fleet of E-4B planes are meant to protect the president and high-ranking government officials from an apocalyptic-level attack.
President Donald Trump on Sunday warned that nuclear weapons are the greatest threat to humanity and said that a nuclear war 'could happen tomorrow'.
Trump, who is in charge of the second-largest nuclear stockpile in the world, told Fox News' Sunday Morning Features that the use of 'monster' warheads may 'end the world', adding that the 'level of destruction is beyond anything you can imagine'.
But the US Air Force has a fleet of $223million top-secret aircraft that will serve as a mobile war room for the president and his top officials in the case of a national emergency.
The Air Force currently operates four E-4B aircraft, with at least one on alert at all times at the Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska.
They are typically used to transport the secretary of defense on overseas travel, but are also tasked with following Air Force One on the president's trips abroad.
The aircraft have been in operation since the Cold War and provide leaders with a survivable command and control center, and the ability to deliver orders to the military in the event of a national emergency.
E-4B planes have unique capabilities that cannot be duplicated by any other aircraft that the Air Force uses.
The so-called doomsday planes have thermal and nuclear shielding, and are capable of withstanding nuclear blasts, electromagnetic effects and cyber attacks. They can also launch retaliatory missiles.
They carry special equipment and have the capability to communicate with anyone, anywhere in the world, and support analysts and strategists in-flight. E-4Bs have 67 satellite dishes and antennas in the ray dome, Business Insider reports.
Doomsday planes all have three decks that include a command room, conference room, briefing room, team work area, communications room, and a designated rest area featuring 18 bunks.
The planes have remained airborne and operational for as long as 35.4 hours in one stint, but they were designed to be able to operate in-flight for a full week without needing to land. The E-4B is also capable of refueling mid-air.
Doomsday planes, called National Airborne Operation Centers when they are in-flight, are operated by the First Airborne Command and Control Squadron of the 595th Command and Control Group.
They are coordinated by the United States Strategic Command and are stationed near the Offutt base.
When the president is in the US, a doomsday plane is kept with its engine running at all times and ready 24 hours a day.
If the President goes abroad, the E-4Bs follow and are known to the crews as 'Air Force One When It Counts'. Should an emergency occur, one of the four craft is thus able to rendezvous with Air Force One almost immediately.
The Air Force has a four aircraft fleet of Boeing E4 planes, which are capable of operating with the largest crew of any aircraft in US Air Force history at 112 people, both flight and mission personnel.
They are not always used as doomsday vessels. The Secretary of Defense will occasionally travel overseas in a E-4B and hold press briefings.
The US is not the only country known to have a fleet of doomsday planes.
Russia has a Ilyushin Il-80 plane known as the 'Flying Kremlin', which is designed to protect President Vladimir Putin in the event of a nuclear attack, according to Euro News.
Similarly to America's E-4B fleet, the Flying Kremlin serves as an airborne command post in the event of nuclear attack.
The lumbering Il-80 Maxdome features special communications equipment, technology that is reportedly resistant to electromagnetic pulse attacks, and can be refueled in mid-air.
The E-4B fleet is expected to reach the end of its service life in the early 2030s.
The four highly-modified Boeing 747-200 jumbo jets have become increasingly difficult and expensive to maintain as parts become obsolete.
The Air Force in April last year awarded a $13billion contract to Sierra Nevada Corp to develop a successor to the aging 1970s-era E-4B aircraft.
Work on the Survivable Airborne Operations Center (SAOC) project will be carried out in Colorado, Nevada and Ohio and is expected to be completed in 2036.
To satisfy operational requirements, the weapon system will comprise of a commercial derivative jet hardened and modified to meet military requirements.
The Air Force eliminated Boeing from its competition to develop a successor to the E-4B Nightwatch in 2023.
Continued on Page 47
#1
Seeing as how I live in a target zone (San Diego). I'll just avoid worrying and practice my core flexibility so I can kiss my own ass goodbye
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/11/2025 1:56 Comments ||
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#2
The only place you're likely to see one is near Tinker AFB in OK, where the fly out of. It's the place they take off and land. The rest of the time they're at Angels28, and out of sight.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
03/11/2025 9:44 Comments ||
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#3
Is this, the updated version of a EC-135 Operation Looking Glass AMCP? Then YES, the Cartel can kiss it.
#4
I've seen them when praying outside the abortuary about 4 blocks from the gates of Offutt Air Force Base (which gives a different meaning to the title of the article).
[REGNUM] There are alarming news coming from the coast of Syria (where, as the reader will recall, we still have military bases). They report that first there were clashes with rebels, called by the new authorities in Damascus "remnants of the former Assad regime", and then mass killings of civilians (mostly Alawites) by militants of the new Syrian authorities from Idlib, Damascus and other cities.
There are alarming news coming from the coast of Syria (where, as the reader will recall, we still have military bases). They report that first there were clashes with rebels, called by the new authorities in Damascus "remnants of the former Assad regime", and then mass killings of civilians (mostly Alawites) by militants of the new Syrian authorities from Idlib, Damascus and other cities.
It is difficult to judge the scale of the executions, but judging by the videos and photos from the scene, I think we will end up with a figure of several thousand people. Experts note that such cruelty and mass murders have not been seen in Syria even under the control of ISIS*.
In addition, about seven thousand local residents fled to the Khmeimim airbase under the protection of Russian military personnel.
It was already difficult for the average Russian to follow the intricacies of Syria, and after Bashar al-Assad fled and Russia established contacts with the new authorities, relying on the bayonets of the terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which we bombed and fought against, our citizens began to completely fail to understand who was bad, who was good, and why we were still hanging around there.
The answer to this question is a separate dissertation, and perhaps more than one, but I will try to explain on my fingers what is happening there now.
So, let's start from the moment of the fall of Bashar al-Assad's power and his flight to Moscow with his family and some members of the government.
As is known, the Assad family itself was from the confessional Arab minority - the Alawites. The top of the Syrian state apparatus was also made up of Alawites. This did not begin under the Assads, but much earlier, when these territories were ruled by the French after the First World War. This is how the Assads actually managed to get to power.
However, in the eyes of the Sunni majority in Syria, this did not justify them. Especially since the Sunnis did not consider the Alawites to be Muslims, and do not consider them to this day.
The dominance of the Assad family and their Makhlouf relatives has not brought any special bonuses to the Alawites as a whole. According to the most conservative estimates, up to 2 million people in Syria currently belong to this confessional group, making up the majority of the coastal population.
After the virtual collapse and desertion of the Syrian government army in 2011, the Alawites, as Assad's supporters, suffered the heaviest losses, fighting for him in all corners of Syria. For example, I met Alawite guys who served for ten years in the middle of the Syrian desert, hundreds of kilometers from the coast. By 2021, about every fourth or fifth family from the coastal provinces has lost someone on the front lines of the civil war.
At the same time, the Alawites never received any preferences or privileges. Bashar al-Assad tried not to irritate the other ethnic and religious groups of the population in the already unstable and semi-occupied country.
By mid-2021, the Alawites' simmering discontent began to boil over in the face of a sharp deterioration in the economic situation due to the introduction of new American sanctions. However, Assad was relentless, and the protests were dispersed, which later, of course, had an impact when Julani's group began to advance on Damascus. No one was particularly eager to defend Assad directly.
It would seem that a heavy burden has been lifted from their shoulders, and the Alawites no longer have to carry the whole of Syria on their backs. But the other side of the coin has also emerged.
Now, in the eyes of the Sunni group that had captured Damascus, all Alawites fell under suspicion and became dangerous a priori, not to mention the fact that for foreign radical jihadists (who had fought in both Al Qaeda* and ISIS*) who came to help overthrow Assad, the Alawites were and remain a perverted sect hiding behind Islam.
The first weeks after the victory of the "Syrian revolution" inspired hope that the worst could be avoided. Especially since the Alawites of the coast surrendered to HTS* without resistance and even took part in the demolition of monuments to Assad.
However, searches and arrests began immediately after this. To the credit of the new Syrian authorities, they began smoothly. Under lulling speeches about a "new free Syria," the repressions were justified by the "fight against the remnants of Assad’s Baathist regime" and the search for officials guilty of "crimes against the Syrian people."
However, under this sauce, the newly organized security service began to ramp up the pace, shooting people not only on the coast, but also in other areas densely populated by Alawites and Christians - in Homs and Hama. When such stories surfaced online or in traditional media, the new authorities, by that time already recognized by almost all European and Gulf countries, justified themselves: these were isolated cases, and "investigations will certainly be conducted," and the guilty "will inevitably be punished."
Time passed, but the attacks and murders did not stop, but rather became more frequent. Shortly before the current events, young people were shot in one of the villages, and Christian cemeteries were destroyed. The new government responded to complaints that these were unfortunate misunderstandings that would be investigated.
Around the end of February, the euphoria from the overthrow of the "hated regime" finally subsided, and it became obvious to the Alawite population that they had been a priori designated as guilty for all the imaginary and real sins of the Assads, with all the ensuing consequences.
It was around this point that a more or less organized underground movement began to take shape.
It must be said that in parallel, rumors have been circulating at high-level foreign backroom negotiating platforms since early January that the power of Julani and the Idlib government is temporary and that everything will change soon. These rumors allegedly spread from American diplomats through their high-ranking Arab interlocutors.
The catalyst was, of course, Israel, whose Minister of Defense declared that he would protect ethno-confessional minorities (meaning, of course, first and foremost the Druze) from the new Syrian authorities, who, according to him, were terrorists and remained terrorists.
I repeat that the purges, searches, and murders did not stop all these months, they just did not happen on such a scale and smoothly.
Very little information about them leaked into the public space. That is how, on March 6, another round of searches and attacks in rural areas in the province of Latakia provoked clashes and then a demonstration by the few Alawite underground groups that had managed to form.
The first patrols of the security service of the new Syrian authorities were destroyed, even shelling the area with a mini-MLRS and bringing in a helicopter did not help. On the night of March 6-7, several dozen rebels captured some sections of the highway between Latakia and Tartus, taking some checkpoints and buildings at a run.
There are now reports of hundreds of former Hayat Tahrir al-Sham* security personnel killed and 120-150 rebels eliminated.
However, the very next day, several thousand former jihadists with heavy equipment, tanks and artillery were transferred from Idlib, Damascus and other cities. The rebels were first stopped and then driven back into the mountains.
At the same time, the new authorities decided to take out their rage on the peaceful Alawite population. Groups of former jihadists began to break into houses and shoot entire families, women and children, filming and calmly posting it all on the Internet to the sound of characteristic cries or nasheeds. On the Internet, you can find videos of the streets of cities and villages, where the dead are lying in a heap, in some cases the dead are buried or burned. The houses of the victims are looted, their property is taken away.
...Given the line the new authorities have chosen towards the Alawites, sooner or later the coast would have flared up. Now, due to spontaneity, it didn't flare up as much - the new authorities reacted strongly, shooting everyone in a row. But imagine if the underground had risen not now, but in four or five months, and had taken control of the coast and the territories around our bases, and the new authorities from Damascus had demanded intervention?
I hope that our command does have some kind of backup plan for this matter.
What can we state now? First of all, for us and our interests.
I will say right away that even before that, the attitude towards us from the new authorities fluctuated from hostile to very hostile. This is logical, considering that our Aerospace Forces participated in the defeat of jihadist groups and bombed their locations in Idlib until the very last moment. And Julani's demands at the negotiations to hand over Assad and his escaped comrades, as well as to compensate for the damage from the bombings, did not come as a surprise.
However, they did not kick us out right away, apparently intending to negotiate with the Europeans and the US about lifting the sanctions.
Now, in social networks of supporters of the new Syrian authorities, there is no longer any doubt about the idea that it was under the patronage of the Russians that the Alawite underground was able to form and act. And this will undoubtedly affect the negotiations regarding the further presence of our military bases on the coast in the near future.
Otherwise, we can confidently state that the idea of at least a unitary Syria and its reintegration in the near future is finally buried. Neither the Kurds, nor the Druze, nor, especially, the Alawites will want to voluntarily directly submit to Damascus and the new Syrian authorities after this.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Grom the Affective ||
03/11/2025 00:00 ||
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