Andrew’s revolutionary research ultimately shows that it was the US, not Russia, which spearheaded the use of Hybrid Wars, and that given his proven findings, it’s irresponsible to even call Russia’s alleged involvement in the Ukrainian Crisis a ‘hybrid war’. In fact, the US is far ahead of any other country in practising this new method of warfare, as no other state has attempted a Color Revolution thus far, let alone transitioned it into an Unconventional War when their initial regime change plans failed. While some many think that such occurrences are spontaneous and happenstance, Andrew documents how Hybrid Wars are not only created from the ground-up by the US, but how they’re specifically deployed in areas where they’d be most geostrategically advantageous for the promotion of its unipolar policies.

Thus, not only does Andrew describe the very essence of Hybrid Wars, but the final part of his book forecasts where he believes they may happen next. He introduces the groundbreaking concept of the Color Arc, a contiguous line of states stretching from Hungary to Kyrgyzstan and where the waging of Hybrid Wars would most seriously damage Russia’s national interests. This is the first time that Color Revolutions have ever been analyzed through a geopolitical prism, and it brings forth a completely different way of looking at this weapon’s utilization. This new paradigm is absolutely essential for understanding the US’ new approach to regime change and the form, both physical and geopolitical, it’s expected to take in the forthcoming years.

A top-secret strategy document prepared for Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan reveals that the United Arab Emirates is losing faith in the ability of Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to serve the Gulf state’s interests.

The document, prepared by one of Bin Zayed’s team and dated 12 October, contains two key quotes which describe the frustration bin Zayed feels about Sisi, whose military coup the Crown Prince bankrolled, pouring in billions of dollars along with Saudi Arabia. It says: “This guy needs to know that I am not an ATM machine.” Further on, it also reveals the political price the Emiratis will exact if they continue to fund Egypt.

Future strategy should be based on not just attempting to influence the government in Egypt but to control it. It is summarised thus: “Now I will give but under my conditions. If I give, I rule.”

Second, the Emiratis are unhappy about Sisi’s broken promises to send ground troops for the Saudi-led campaign against the Houthis in Yemen, a war in which the UAE was forced to commit troops. Sisi used the expression in Egyptian Arabic “masafah as-sikkah,” meaning it would take him the time it needs to cross a road to come to the aid of the Gulf States if they needed military aid. So far, no Egyptian troops have materialised on the ground in Yemen.

According to the informed Saudi sources, Anan is one of three names being considered to replace Sisi. The others are Ahmed Shafiq, a former general who is at present in exile in Abu Dhabi, and Murad Muwafi, a former head of the General Intelligence Directorate, who like Anan was sacked by Morsi. Both Shafiq and Muwafi are regarded as close to the Emirates.

In his conversations with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, King Salman has made no secret of his wish to keep the military in charge of Egypt. Saudi Arabia regards the Egyptian military as the only guarantor of the country’s stability, and it is stability rather than democracy that concerns Riyadh.

OBJECTIVE 1: AIR STRIKES
Ahead of the coming ground campaign, British air strikes are understood to have killed around 350 IS fighters in Iraq, while in Syria the French air force has increased its sorties, dropping 20 bombs near Raqqa.

BOMBING RAIDS

Air strikes so far by the Coalition forces lined up against ISIS:
US 3,500                            NETHERLANDS 225
RUSSIA 400                        AUSTRALIA 130
BRITAIN 350                      CANADA 130
FRANCE 300                      DENMARK 120

OBJECTIVE 2: MOSUL, IRAQ

Up to 10,000 IS fighters could defend Mosul against a ground force backed by Coalition air power.
The terror group is believed to have moved its intelligence HQ to Aljamhouri hospital in the city centre.
The Wadi Iqab industrial district west of the city is thought to hide weapons and vehicles.
Below, the main targets are pictured.

IS FIGHTER UNITS

The terror organisation’s fighter units are structured like a conventional military force because they contain many ex-Iraqi Army commanders and former officials in Saddam Hussein’s regime.
Troops are divided into battalions of around 500 men, companies of 90 and platoons of 30.
But IS is losing fighters in battles against the Kurds and due to air strikes.
The number of foreign fighters has also fallen from 15,000 to 8,000 in recent months.

OBJECTIVE 3: RAQQA, SYRIA

Home to about 20,000 troops and IS headquarters – 100 metres from the notorious clockhouse roundabout where it conducts public executions.

IS is moving military hardware and troops to the suburbs and has dug trenches and a tunnel network.
The group is also considering conscription for adult men to prepare for a final defence.

'COALITION FORCES'

The combined firepower of the US, Russia, France and Britain is supporting thousands of Kurdish, Iraqi and Syrian ground forces.

RUSSIAN FORCES
Syria

32 fighter aircraft, including:
12 SU-24 attack aircraft
12 SU-25 ground-attack aircraft
Four SU-30 multi-role fighters
One Surface-to-air missile system

BRITISH FORCES
Cyprus

Eight Tornado jets
Two Sentinel
Two C-130 Hercules
Two C-17 Transport
One Voyager

Kuwait

10 Reaper drones
Qatar
Two Rivet Joint surveillance aircraft

U.S. FORCES
Persian Gulf

70 strike aircraft and:
Unmanned drones based in Gulf state and in Turkey
A U.S. aircraft carrier will be arriving in the New Year

FRENCH FORCES

Jordan
Six Mirage 2000 aircraft
Gulf region
Six Rafale multi-role fighter jets
One Atlantique maritime patrol aircraft

TOTAL IS FORCES...
TROOPS - 30,000 trained men paid $300 per month
TANKS - 50, mainly Russian T-55s and T-72s
ARTILLERY - 2,000 pieces, including 23mm anti-aircraft guns
CHEMICALS - quantities unknown, but IS is now making deadly poisons

Glock is showing off its smallest pistol to date in Paris, a weapon that weighs only 16 ounces and is easy to conceal.

The 9 x 19, G43 is one of several firearms that Glock has brought to this year’s edition of Milipol in Paris. Milipol is a biennial event where tactical teams from around the world, law enforcement and military, shop for the very latest in homeland security tech and gear.

The weapon, which was launced earlier this year, made its Milipol debut this week.

A solution for everyday concealed carry requirements, the G43 has a single stack magazine that holds six rounds. This gun is tiny, just over six inches long and a little more than an inch wide. Including the magazine, it is about four and a quarter inches in height.

It has also been designed to be comfortable regardless of hand size. The trigger distance is only 2.6 inches, making it a great choice for those with smaller hands.

Here at Milipol in Paris, GLOCK is also featuring Gen4 pistols that feature what is called Modular Optic System configuration. This simplifies the mounting of popular optic sights, which can help improve accuracy at both short and long ranges.

Thousands of paramilitary forces from Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard held a war game simulating the capture of Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque from Israeli control, The Associated Press (AP) reported, citing Iranian state media.

The Iranian forces reportedly stormed and "liberated" a replica of the mosque as part of the exercise. 120 brigades from the Basij, the paramilitary unit of the Guard, reportedly participated in the exercise, held Friday outside the holy city of Qom in central Iran.

The symbolic operations were backed up by Guard helicopters, drones and Tucano planes that bombed hypothetical enemy positions before ground troops captured the replica of the mosque set up at the top of a mountain, according to AP.

TANDUO, Malaysia – Darkness fills the confined space. The aroma of exhaust and burning fuel is in the air. Some rest their eyes while others bow their heads mentally preparing.

Suddenly the sound of metallic tracks making contact with the beach catches everyone’s attention.

“We’re on the beach,” shouts Lance Cpl. John Figueroa over the sounds of the screeching tracks and roaring engine.

Everyone inside grips their rifles tight and adjusts their helmets in preparation for what they know is coming.

“Dropping ramp,” shouts Figueroa. There is a burst of intense light, and, for a moment, everyone inside is blinded. They quickly compose themselves.

The ramp hits the sand with a thud, and U.S. Marines with Malaysian soldiers burst into action.

This was the scene at the culminating training event for Malaysia-United States Amphibious Exercise 2015, a four-day-long bilateral training exercise between U.S. Marines with the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit and the Malaysian Armed Forces.

Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Jaafar, who was until last Wednesday the Malaysian navy chief, told The Sunday Times that the PLA navy "has noted the offer, but no indication yet" has been given on when it may begin to dock at Kota Kinabalu. "(It was a) similar offer as extended to the USN to show we don't take sides," he added, using the acronym for the US Navy.

According to state news agency Bernama, Malaysia offered the use of the port as a stopover to strengthen defence ties between the two countries.

Mr Abdul Aziz was quoted as saying that the port has also received visits from US and French vessels in the past and that enhanced defence relations with China would help overcome issues relating to overlapping border claims.

Let us examine the situation in the region, relying on materials of IBV experts Y. Shcheglovin and P. Ryabov. Note that according to American sources, visits to Sochi by the successor of the Saudi crown prince M. ben Salman and the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates M. ben Nakhayan, and their negotiations with president Putin, ended with a statement regarding serious disagreements on the Syrian conflict. The Arab monarchies confirmed that they will not stand aside from destroying the allies among the opposition groups and will begin to reinforce their logistics, including MANPADS for fighting against Russian aircraft. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are not ready for organization of intra-Syrian negotiations that would keep Bashar Assad in power and supported by Russia. They had in mind an alliance between Iran and Russia, considered in KSA and the United Arab Emirates as a threat to their national security, taking into account the weak military potential of the Saudi and Emirate armies.

The emergence of a large number of MANPADS among Assad’s opponents is improbable, considering that in Syria not just Russian air-space forces, but also coalition planes led by the USA, are operating. However, modern anti-tank complexes are arriving in Syria in large number. Currently in Riyadh a decision has been made to send Jabhat al-Nusra 500 sets of anti-tank guided missile launchers. It is necessary to expect activity of the KSA also within Russia, in the form of attempts to finance resonant terrorism acts and stimulate an outbreak of jihadism in the North Caucasus, especially in Dagestan. One indicator is the fatwa of 52 religious scholars and imams of KSA urging able-bodied men to “join the fighters resisting the Russian armies in Syria”. A campaign has begun to supply volunteers and arms deliveries to the pro-Saudi groups Jabhat al-Nusra and Akhrar ash-Sham, who are holding the Idlib base, an attack on which, with their displacement to Turkey, is a priority for the Syrian army.

In setting the stage for an attack on Raqqa, a plan has been promoted to create a coalition “Vulcan of the Euphrates”, into which Kurds, Assyrian Christians, Turkomans, and various groups of the Syrian Free Army will enter. This last one is formed of little-known “moderate” Islamic groups: “Hazm”, “Front of the Syrian Revolutionaries”, and “Jaish al-Tuuvar”. This is intended to give the coalition the character of a grass-roots movement uniting wide layers of opponents of Assad, from ethnic groups to secular and moderately Islamic groups. In fact, these are the remnants of the program to prepare a “new Syrian opposition”, restricted to merely having no Jabhat al-Nusra. The actual venture is placed on the Syrian Kurds, due to which Ankara and Washington will operate in the near term in Syria, in many respects separately.

The staging ground for an attack on Raqqa is to the north and east of the Euphrates. The transfer of weapons and coordination of the interaction with coalition aircraft will be through the Incirlik base, with a staff in Qatar. The weapons will go through Iraq Kurdistan, whose president M. Barzani agreed to this during negotiations last month with a Pentagon delegation in Erbil, having in passing refused to participate in an attack on Mosul. The US CIA is coordinating all this. In the format of an ultimate goal, it is planned to take Dayr az Zawr in addition to Raqqa, attacking it from the Hasakah side along the Khabar River, although the coalition hammered together by Americans can hardly conduct two offensive operations at the same time. Capturing Dayr az Zawr will cut off the Islamists from bases in the northeast of Aleppo, and damage their centralized command and supply from Turkey. The Kurds will not advance to the Arab regions of the country.

A total of 7 of these tanks appear to be in Syria, judging by satellite images. So far there is no evidence of them having participated in combat operations. So far…

The insurrection inside Central Command is an important chapter in the story of how the United States responded to the growing threat from the Islamic State group. During the summer, a group of Central Command analysts took concerns about their superiors to the inspector general, saying they had evidence senior officials had changed intelligence assessments to overstate the progress of U.S. airstrikes against the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS.

But military officials have told Congress some of those emails and documents may have been deleted before they had to be turned over to investigators, according to a senior congressional official, who requested anonymity. Current and former officials have separately made similar claims, on condition of anonymity, to The New York Times.

The state-run Anatolia news agency said ethnic Turkmen fighters had captured the villages of Harjaleh and Dalha in northern Aleppo province from IS forces.

The ground offensive by the Turkmen fighters, strong allies of Turkey in its push to oust President Bashar al-Assad, was backed from the air by US and Turkish fighter jets, it added.

Six Turkish F-16s, four US F-15s, an American AC-130 and three drones were involved, the report said, without specifying if any targets were hit. Some 70 IS militants were killed in the fighting, it added.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed that the villages had been captured from IS but said the campaign had been waged by rebel and Islamist factions and not just Turkmen fighters.

AESA radars have changed aerial combat, offering a quantum leap in range, resolution, fast scanning capabilities, stealthiness and reliability among many other advantages. But, an AESA’s somewhat narrow field of view can still be an issue. SAAB has come up with a ingenious solution to this problem—spin an angled AESA radar array around on a platter.

This system, which is called a repositioner, is ingenious as it allows the Gripen NG’s Raven ES-05 radar to gain another 40 degrees of scanning ability to either side of the aircraft’s nose. This is in addition to the 60 degrees AESA radar sets typically provide (120 degrees combined).

The ability to take a beyond-visual-range missile shot, then turn 90 degrees, while still providing mid-course updates for the missile fired and keep situational awareness at its peak is a great thing, and it opens up many tactical advantages for Gripen NG crews.

This system will allow beaming into the enemy’s radar notch without losing track of the bad guys. Beaming is when a fighter turns around 90 degrees away (perpendicular) from the enemy’s pulse doppler radar array. Because these types of radars use doppler shift to gauge a target’s relative velocity, and as such they filter out low relative velocity objects, especially ground clutter, the beaming fighter, which is not moving to or away from the enemy radar much while beaming, can enter the enemy radar’s notch.

This is a blind spot where the radar’s velocity gate, which acts like a filter, sees a target at low enough speed from its perspective that it discounts it. So even though the fighter may be moving at 500 mph, the right angle to the radar makes it only detect maybe 60 mph of closure, as such it throws this information out as it would ground clutter. This is an especially useful tactic when the enemy fighter is above you, and trying to lock you up in the look-down-shoot down scenario.

The issue is that with a typical fixed AESA radar array, pulling off such a maneuver means the fighter doing so will lose its radar picture and lock on the enemy it is trying to evade. Without third party sensors feeding this data to the beaming fighter via data-link, its pilot will become blind to the tactical situation when it matters most.

Now, with a system like SAAB’s repositioner, the radar can be rotated to gain the extra azimuth to continue scanning the area over 90 degrees off its nose. As such, the pilot will not lose situational awareness and their missiles can continue to get mid-course updates as they fly towards their targets. Paired with low-probability of intercept mode, where the AESA radar uses very directed beams of radar energy in quick succession, and while hopping frequencies, the fighter that is beaming can be hard to detect even by passive sensors, such as radar warning receivers.


With new missiles that have extreme ranges, like MBDA’s Meteor, a Gripen NG could fire these missiles at enemy fighters at long-ranges, and then jump into the enemy’s doppler notch to hide while still guiding its missiles. This could put the Gripen NG beyond the reach of the enemy’s infrared search and track system (IRST) that is impervious to jamming or beaming tricks during the entirety of the engagement, as well as the enemy’s radar for much of it. As such, the enemy fighters would not be able to detect the Gripen even while its missiles are well on the way. First shots, first kill.

Other solutions to this problem have been designed into other fighters. The F-22 Raptor was supposed to have AESA radar arrays on both sides of its nose in order to give the jet more radar coverage at extreme angles. Sadly, the equipment was never installed due to budget reasons. Still, the F-22, with its low observability (stealth) really has less a need for such a system than less stealthy aircraft.

Unlike the F-22, Russia’s T-50 has side-mounted AESA arrays, which may be necessary due to the aircraft’s less stealthy design when compared to the F-22. The Eurofighter consortium also has an answer to this problem with their swashplate design tied to the CAPTOR-E radar, which is very similar to SAAB’s repositioner.

Electric voltage could give greater control over artillery propellants

“If you can control the burn rate and energy output of a propellant with electric voltage, this opens a whole new capability,” said David Thompson, a chemical engineer and member of the research team.

Currently two kinds of motors used for extended range propellants in the U.S. Army. One, known as a base-bleed motor, burns right out of the gun and gives some extended range. The other, a rocket assist motor, kicks in at the top of the flight to increase the velocity of the shell.

“With electric voltage, you could use one motor that does both,” Thompson said. “You could create a low-voltage, right out of the gun, and get that base-bleed effect, and then hit it with a high voltage and get the rocket-assist effect, ultimately increasing the range over that which either motor can provide on its own.”

ISIL militants have been surrendering to advancing Peshmerga troops on the regular basis since supply routes connecting Iraq and Syria have been cut off heavy pounding by the US-led coalition airstrikes, a frontline commander of Kurdish forces in Gwer, Qadr Qadr, told Kurdish media outlet Bas News on Sunday.

He further explained that some jihadists retreated to their stronghold Mosul, while others continue surrendering to his units.

According to the Peshmerga general, there are no Iraqi government troops fighting against ISIL, but several units of Kurdish volunteer militia forces.

ISIL is losing a large number of fighters and heavy weaponry. During a recent military operation, Kurds managed to kill Abu Jihad, a major ISIL intelligence officer in the Sinjar province, general Gurdy said.

MOSCOW, November 22. /TASS/. A militant group incorporated into the Islamic State, a terrorist organization outlawed in Russia, has been neutralized in Nalchik and a workshop for the production of home-made explosive devices has been rendered harmless, a spokesman for the National Anti-terrorist Committee told TASS on Sunday.

"In a counter terrorist operation conducted in (Russia’s North Caucasian) Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, officers of the Russian Federal Security Service and Interior Ministry neutralized a militant group incorporated into the international terrorist organization Islamic State. Eleven bandits were spotted at a fortified base located in a mountain forest. They were killed when they tried to break away from the blocked area," the spokesman said.

According to the National Anti-terrorist Committee, this group recruited fighters for terrorist groups and sent them to Syria.