In 1999, U.S. military planners had to solve a tricky problem: How do you stop a ruthless dictator from breaking the rules without resorting to ruthless tactics yourself?

Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was ignoring “no-fly zones” established to keep him from attacking Kurdish and Sunni minorities in his own country.

American and allied air forces were able to force Iraqi jets to stay on the ground, but Hussein ordered his anti-air units to antagonize the US fighters from civilian areas. He also stationed other units in areas they weren’t allowed to be in, but made sure they were surrounded by civilians as well.

To hit the targets without causing collateral damage, the U.S. turned to “concrete bombs.” The bombs were training aids repurposed to destroy actual targets. Weighing 500, 1,000, or 2,000 pounds, they wouldn’t explode when they struck an enemy vehicle but would transfer their kinetic energy into it.

This would destroy even large vehicles like tanks without harming people nearby. If the crew was lucky, they might even survive a bomb that struck outside of the crew area of a vehicle.

France used the bombs in 2011, dropping concrete bombs during the liberation of Libya. Concrete bombs are still used by America in both training and real world missions. To see a simulated concrete bomb destroy a car, check out the National Geographic video below.

SEE ALSO: This is the FBI's dream team of elite counterterrorism operators

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More than a thousand artificial intelligence researchers just co-signed an open letter urging the United Nations to ban the development and use of autonomous weapons.

The letter was presented this week at the 2015 International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and physicist Stephen Hawking signed the letter, alongside leading AI scientists like Google director of research Peter Norvig, University of California, Berkeley computer scientist Stuart Russell and Microsoft managing director Eric Horvitz.

The letter states that the development of autonomous weapons, or weapons that can target and fire without a human at the controls, could bring about a "third revolution in warfare," much like the creation of guns and nuclear bombs before it.

Even if autonomous weapons were created for use in "legal" warfare, the letter warns that autonomous weapons could become "the Kalashnikovs of tomorrow"— hijacked by terrorists and used against civilians or in rogue assassinations.

To everyday citizens, the Kalahnikovs — a series of automatic rifles designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov— are better known as AKs.

"They're likely to be used not just in wars between countries, but the way Kalashnikovs are used now ... in civil wars," Russell told Tech Insider. "[Kalashnikovs are] used to terrorize populations by warlords and guerrillas. They're used by governments to oppress their own people."

A life in fear of terrorists or governments armed with autonomous artificially intelligent weapons "would be a life for many human beings that is not something I would wish for anybody," Russell said.

Unlike nuclear arms, the letter states that lethal autonomous weapons systems, or LAWS, would "require no costly or hard-to-obtain raw materials, so they will become ubiquitous and cheap for all significant military powers to mass-produce."

But just how close are we to having usable autonomous weapons? According to Russell, affordable killer robots aren't a distant technology of the future. Stuart wrote in a May 2015 issue of Nature that LAWS could be feasible in just a few years.

In fact, semiautonomous weapons, which have some autonomous functions but not the capability to fire without humans, already exist. As Heather Roff, an ethics professor at the University of Denver, writes in Huffington Post Tech, the line between semiautonomous and fully autonomous is already quite thin, and getting even smaller.

For example, Roff writes, Lockheed Martin's long-range anti-ship missile can pick its own target, though it is fired by humans, at least for now. "The question has been raised whether this particular weapon slides from semi-autonomous to fully autonomous, for it is unclear how (or by whom) the decision is made," she wrote.

According to the New York Times: "Britain, Israel, and Norway are already deploying missiles and drones that carry out attacks against enemy radar, tanks, or ships without direct human control."

This open letter banning autonomous weapons is one of the latest warnings issued by scientists and entrepreneurs about the existential threats superintelligent AI could pose for humanity.

In December 2014, Hawking told the BBC that "the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race."

In January, many of the signatories of today's letter signed a call for AI research to remain "robust and beneficial" on the Future of Life Institute, an organization headed by prominent names in AI research, scientists, and even Morgan Freeman.

The same month, Musk donated $10 million to the Future of Life Institute to fund a variety of research projects that aim to do just that. The 37 projects includes one that hopes to ensure that "the interests of superintelligent systems AI systems align with human values" and another, headed by Roff, aims to ensure that "AI-driven weapons are kept under 'meaningful human control'."

Jared Adams, the Director of Media Relations at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency told Tech Insider in an email that the Department of Defense "explicitly precludes the use of lethal autonomous systems," as stated by a 2012 directive.

"The agency is not pursuing any research right now that would permit that kind of autonomy," Adams said. "Right now we're making what are essentially semiautonomous systems because there is a human in the loop."

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NOW WATCH: Here's what we know about the new 'Earth' — a planet that could support life

The war against the Islamic State just widened to include Turkey as a combatant.

The Obama administration has long tried to persuade the Islamic government of RecipTayip Erdoğan to get into the fray, but the vital question still needs to be asked: Is this “game-changer,” as one U.S. official calls it, a good thing or a bad thing?

There’s no simple answer, but on balance, this development offers a little short-term good and a lot of long-term bad.  

There is no question that ISIS threatens everyone, including most Muslims, and is now destabilizing Turkey’s southern provinces. Countering this menace is an urgent task.

If you applaud the spread of what American colonel-turned-scholar Andrew Bacevich terms “the War for the Greater Middle East,” you’ll have to do so without me. The history books are going to call this the war in which more or less everybody fought more or less everybody.

For the Obama administration, the conflict that now runs from Iraq through Syria and (effectively) across the latter’s border with Turkey shapes up as a quagmire at least as bad as the Vietnam mess of the Kennedy and Johnson years.

Now as then, a one-dimensional military response is doomed to fail, in the view of some very thoughtful heads.  

At least in the Vietnam War, one could distinguish allies from adversaries. In the Middle East war, a friend in one theater is an enemy in another.

Turkey just made things still more complicated in this regard.

President Obama got Erdoğan’s consent to allow American fighter jets to launch missions into Syria from two Turkish bases in a telephone call last Wednesday. The next day Turkish tank and artillery units fought ISIS militants for the first time; early Friday, Turkish F-16s bombed at least eight targets inside Syria and Iraq.

From the Ankara government: “The terrorist organization represents a national security threat to Turkey, and we are working closely with our allies, including the United States, to combat terrorism.” Boilerplate.

From Washington: Regarding the U.S. and Turkey, State Department spokesperson John Kirby said, “We have decided to further deepen our cooperation in the fight against ISIL....” as State calls the Islamic State. That’s it. More boilerplate.

As a tactical expedient, there’s obvious advantage for the Pentagon in this pact. U.S. warplanes can now take off and land much closer to the Syrian border than they can from bases in Iraq, Jordan, and the Persian Gulf.

O.K., but that’s a purely military consideration. And no surprise, the agreement was negotiated by John R. Allen, a retired marine general who acts as Obama’s special envoy for the campaign against ISIS.

Here’s the reality: Gaining the use of two Turkish bases is nothing like the sum of what Obama and Erdoğan just signed off on. Behind the sparse accounts of the agreement we’ve had so far, it looks like we’ve just been served another bowl of that too-familiar dish, spaghetti a la Obama.

One, the Erdoğan government views the Middle East war through the lens of the Shia-Sunni conflict for regional primacy. Being Sunni, its priority has been to topple the Assad government in Damascus, which is Alawite, a Shia sect.

Don’t wonder why so many arms and foreign fighters have until now flowed through Turkey to “the Islamic State’s power base in Syria,” as The New York Times put it last week. This is why.

One reason Erdoğan previously declined to cooperate with Washington is that he insisted the Pentagon accept a no-fly zone in northern Syria, wherein anti-Assad militias—some very unsavory types—can train. Did Obama, who wants to defeat ISIS at this point, not topple Assad, just consent to this?

Allen, in an appearance at the Aspen Security Forum Thursday, said simply, “No. It was not part of the discussion.” Maybe not, but Mark Lowen, the BBC’s Turkey correspondent, said the U.S. did accept a “safe area,” and it takes a fine eye indeed to distinguish one from the other.

In sum, the Obama administration appears to have waded yet further into the mangrove swamp of regional rivalries—a place from which no profit will be realized, and it will have a hard time getting out if or when it decides to.

Which leads to the second unstated point behind this agreement.

Erdoğan isn’t bombing ISIS alone. He instantly took the new pact as license to resume Turkey’s long campaign against the Kurds—within and beyond its borders.

Turkish authorities have arrested hundreds of “extremist militants” in the past few days, nearly 600 by the government’s count. From a well placed source in Istanbul: “About 20 supporters of Daesh [the Arabic for ISIS] were taken in and about 200 were Kurdish militants.”

As to the Turkish F-16s airborne since Friday, three were raids against ISIS, at least five against Kurdish camps in Iraq.

“The Turkish airstrikes on Kurdish positions in Syria and Iraq were much heavier and more numerous than on the Daesh positions in Syria,” my Istanbul source confirmed Sunday.

Apart from whatever carrots Washington just fed Erdoğan, Ankara was catalyzed into action by an ISIS bomb attack in Suruc, a town in southern Turkey, where 32 people were killed. Note: Suruc is Kurdish. PKK, the militant Kurdish party, now accuses the Erdoğan government of colluding in the attack, breaking a ceasefire that had suspended PKK’s 30-year fight for Kurdish rights in Turkey two years ago.

“Could Washington's tacit toleration of the PKK strikes have been the price of Ankara's involvement against ISIS?” the BBC’s Mark Lowen asks. In the question lies the answer.

Ankara called Sunday for a meeting of NATO ambassadors to consider its new activity against ISIS and the Kurds. Presumably, it wants approval from the military alliance, of which it’s a member. The meeting is on for Tuesday and it will probably get it, given Washington’s longstanding influence over NATO’s policy positions.  

You must know the punch line here: The Kurds are key allies in the U.S.-led fight against ISIS in Iraq, especially in the northern regions of the country.

We’re strangling ourselves in the Middle East’s “ropes of sand,” as the scholar Gary Sick termed the region’s ever-shifting web of tactical alliances. How did it come to this?

I count two explanations.

One, the Middle East is a classic case of a foreign policy framework that is simply too militarized. Why, to take the most available indicator, was the deal with Erdoğan negotiated by a four-star general with training in military strategy and intelligence but absolutely none in international relations or any other relevant field?

Two, the Obama administration gives no indication of a long-term strategy to stabilize the Middle East’s arc of crisis. Where is the rounded thinking, the blueprint for “a new security regime in the Middle East,” as Jeffrey Sachs, the Columbia University development economist, put it last week?

Short-term gain, long-term loss: This is the fruit of Washington’s recruitment of Turkey into the Middle East’s widening war.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration has decided that the National Security Agency will soon stop examining — and will ultimately destroy — millions of American calling records it collected under a controversial program leaked by former agency contractor Edward Snowden.

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ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — President Barack Obama unleashed a blistering and belittling rebuke of Republican White House hopefuls Monday, calling their attack on his landmark nuclear deal with Iran "ridiculous if it weren't so sad."

Standing before television cameras during a trip to Africa, Obama suggested the bellicose rhetoric from some GOP candidates was an attempt to divert attention from Donald Trump, the wealthy businessman-turned presidential contender whose popularity is confounding the Republican field.

"Maybe it gets attention and maybe this is just an effort to push Mr. Trump out of the headlines, but it's not the kind of leadership that is needed for America right now," Obama said during a news conference in Ethiopia.

Obama's comments marked his most direct engagement in the race to succeed him. Until now, he's largely limited his commentary to policy differences with Republicans, often sidestepping the names of specific candidates.

But the president's unsparing criticism Monday — targeting candidates Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz, as well as Trump — underscored his sensitivity to efforts to scuttle the Iran accord, which he hopes will be his signature foreign policy initiative. It also raised the prospect of an aggressive role for Obama in the 2016 presidential campaign.

"In 18 months, I'm turning over the keys," Obama said. "I want to make sure I'm turning over the keys to somebody who is serious about the serious problems that the country faces and the world faces."

The president was asked specifically about Huckabee's assertion that Obama had agreed to a nuclear deal that would "take the Israelis and basically march them to the door of the oven," a reference to crematoria in Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust. The Israeli government staunchly opposes the agreement and views an Iranian nuclear program as a threat to its existence.

Obama said the comments from Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, were part of a broader pattern from Republicans. He also singled out Cruz, the Texas senator, for saying the nuclear deal makes Obama — not Iran — the leading state sponsor of terrorism.

"These are leaders in the Republican Party," Obama said, seeming incredulous. He suggested the GOP was breaking longstanding American tradition of not playing "fast and loose" with facts during serious foreign policy debates.

Cruz, appearing Monday night on Fox News Channel's "Hannity," responded, "It speaks volume that he's halfway across the globe and he feels the need to attack me."

Hillary Rodham Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, said she was "offended personally" by Huckabee's comments. His remarks should be "repudiated by every person of good faith," she said during a campaign stop in Iowa Monday.

Huckabee dismissed the criticism, arguing that what was "ridiculous and sad" was that Obama wasn't taking Iran's threats to destroy Israel seriously.

"I will stand with our ally Israel to prevent the terrorists in Tehran from achieving their own stated goal of another Holocaust," Huckabee said in a statement.

While Huckabee's comments were aimed at Obama, some members of the GOP field — Trump most notably — haven't held back in their criticism of each other as next week's initial Republican debate draws near. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush called on his colleagues Tuesday to tone it down.

"We have to campaign with joy in our hearts — not anger," Bush said during an event outside Orlando. "We shouldn't say outrageous things that turn people off to the conservative message. Our message is the one of hope and opportunity for everyone."

The White House is the midst of an intense lobbying campaign to prevent Congress from blocking implementation of the Iran deal. Lawmakers have until mid-September to review the accord, which aims to curb Iran's nuclear program in exchange for relief from international economic sanctions.

The Republican candidates are united in their opposition to the deal, saying Obama has left Iran on the brink of building a bomb and done nothing to address Tehran's support for terrorism. Some, including Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, have vowed to immediately scrap the agreement if elected.

Obama's unprompted analysis of Trump's effect on the Republican field marks a shift for the president. He's largely steered clear of opportunities to weigh in on controversial statements Trump has made in recent weeks about Mexican immigrants and the war record of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who was taken prisoner in Vietnam.

Obama brought up on his own Trump's suggestion that McCain wasn't a war hero because he was captured. Praising McCain's heroism, the president said Trump's remarks grew out of a political culture where those types of comments are tolerated.

"When outrageous statements are made about me, a lot of people outraged about McCain were pretty quiet," he said.

Obama has a long history with Trump, who was a driver of the "birther" movement that claimed the president wasn't born in the U.S. Trump's claims pushed Obama to release a copy of his birth certificate in 2011.

Asked on Fox's "Hannity" to respond to Obama, Trump called the president "very divisive" and said "he should have devoted more time to working on a good nuclear deal with Iran instead of what he's doing."

For years, Trump has been a sought-after surrogate and fundraiser for GOP candidates. As a candidate himself, he's unexpectedly emerged this summer as a leading contender for the GOP nomination, tapping into voters' discontent with Washington.

While some GOP candidates stepped up their criticism of Trump after his comments on McCain — South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham called him a jackass — the businessman's standing with voters does not appear to have been significantly damaged. He is still expected to be among the 10 candidates who qualify for the first Republican debate on Aug. 6 based on their standing in national polls.

___

Associated Press writers Josh Lederman in Washington, Catherine Lucey in Iowa, Sergio Bustos in Florida and Jill Colvin in New Jersey contributed to this report.

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We recently came across the following question on Quora: “If every state of the USA declared war against each other, which would win?“

We’ve published the full answer from Quora user Jon Davis, a Marine veteran who is now a writer and blogger on military, veterans, and Middle Eastern affairs. In Oct. 2014, Davis’ answer was optioned by a Hollywood producer for a potential television series.

These are the accounts of the Second American Civil War, also known as the Wars of Reunification and the American Warring States Period.

After the breakup many wondered which states would come out in control of the power void created by the dissolution of the United States. There were many with little chance against several of the larger more powerful states.

The states in possession of a large population, predisposition for military bases and a population open to the idea of warfare fared the best. In the long term we would look to states with self-sufficiency and long term military capabilities.

Here are the states that held the greatest strategic value from day one. They have the ability to be self-sufficient, economic strength, military strength, the will to fight and the population to support a powerful war machine.

• California
• Texas
• New York

Others that have many of the qualities that gave them an advantage are also listed.

• Washington
• Colorado
• Illinois
• Virginia
• Florida
• Georgia

For all intents and purposes Alaska and Hawaii ended well enough since they were so far removed from the center of the country that they never really suffer greatly nor benefit from the shattering.

Day 12: “It’s getting scary. My mom said we are going back to Oklahoma to stay with Grandma. The other day my dad was yelling at some men at the door. They seemed really upset. I held Jamie. She is still little. She’s scared and doesn’t understand what is going on. I am scared too. There are also some boys at school who keep picking on her and calling her an “Okie”. We were both raised here, but I don’t really think that matters. All the other families on my street have huge one-star flags hanging from their homes. I don’t want to leave my house, but Mom says we have to go. The highways are packed with people. I wish things would just go back to how it was.”The Diary of Sarah Brennan

First came a period of massive migration back to the homelands. Facing the newly invented discrimination that will be created many felt the need to go back to their own people. While the individual states retained all military assets they couldn’t control the individuals who fight.

A Texas Marine stationed in California, would not fight for California. A soldier in New York would not fight against their home in Virginia and a sailor in Houston would not fight against their home state of Florida. The warriors returned to their home states and the states had to reconsider that when they measured troop strength of their new nations. Ultimately, they measured troop strength by how much of the population would return home.

After the migrations rough approximations left the states even, additionally, the balance of foreign nationals changed. At some point there was a migration of people back to their non-United States homeland. Over the next several months many from the North migrated to Canada and in the South to Mexico and South America. Millions of Latinos fled back South to the safety of their families and away from the looming danger of the war.

Day 42:“Citizens of California are advised to stay away from the Mexican Border. In response to the recent surge of immigrants back to Mexico, authorities out of Mexico City have closed entry into the country. Agents from Tijuana are now manning armed sentries posted along the border. There have been scattered reports of refugees attempting to storm the gates being shot by soldiers on the Mexican side. It has also been communicated that the No Man’s Land will be mined within the week and that Mexico will not be allowing any non-Mexican immigrants to enter the country from this point forward. Once again, we strongly advise all those wishing to leave the country to stay in their homes.”

Jennifer Aranda – Channel 14 News

The war was little more than a very tenuous peace for several months. The new nations were mostly focused on the reconsolidating of their forces and trying for quick grabs at resources that were easy to hold. Alliances were beginning to form as some of the smaller states sought to ally with known powers in the region.

The first of what we would call real battles was mostly when some of the regional powers overtook mainly unmanned installations or took over now abandoned Federal assets.

Day 63: “We are gathered here today as the inheritors of a lost legacy. Our nation has been lost to shattering and disarray. For that reason it is our duty to bring back our house to a structure undivided. When we arrived in the District we found it empty and abandoned. The monuments to our civilization watched silently over the broken halls of our once proud Capitol.

We came to the District to bring back order. We have done this deed and now it is our charge to bring back the greatness of America and return her to her proud place of honor… We will do these things and we will do the others because we are a great people. We are Americans. We are VIRGINIANS!”

Inauguration speech of President Anthony Stokes

The first real occupation attempts happened when attempts were made to secure more assets.

The Republic of Texas sought to gain strategic advantages in the Central United States. To do this they sought to gain two strategic assets.

The first was control of Whiteman AFB, the home of the B-2 bomber program. The base was easily secured and the most coveted military bomber in the world was now in the hands of the Republic of Texas. The next was control of Colorado and her military installations of great value. Then finally was access to the Mississippi River. Two main offenses took place to do just that.

The First Battle of New Orleans involved a massive force occupying the city to claim it as a port and artery for future engagements. In Colorado they met stiff resistance as many of the Texas military were unfamiliar with Mountain warfare. Colorado’s major bases fell quickly since Colorado enjoys the smallest force to fight back the Texans, but they adapted an unconventional warfare stance that kept the Texans on edge for months.

Still, at this point the mission behind taking Colorado had been achieved–control over its military bases and strategic assets. The insurgency does however slow down the growth of Texas.

New York pushed Northward. They pushed to claim all of New England and the food wealth they will need to supply their people now that resources from the Midwest are no longer available. The takeover is mostly peaceful as many of the states have large, but mostly non-military, populations. They encountered problems when large groups of refugees tried to flee to Canada and rioting ensued.

Illinois was calm. The Midwest Alliance grew steadily by seeking to secure the Great Lakes. They were able to take Ohio through a few fierce, but brief encounters. They also took on Minnesota and the headwaters of the Mississippi River.

The West coast was now controlled by the two main powers–California with its seat of power in San Francisco and The North West Union centered in Seattle. California gained support and took control of all the states West of the Continental Divide and South of the Union. The North West Union pushed as far as Wyoming.

In the South, Georgia gained strength as Alabama and South Carolina joined. The leadership of Georgia advocated a return to confederalism as fanatics gain headway among the people. The Neo-Confederacy movement takes root and spreads throughout the Old South and rekindles a sense of unity among the states who engaged on the side of the Confederacy during the First United States Civil War. Peacefully they are able to convince Mississippi and Tennessee to also join. The growth of Confederate States puts an ever-growing pressure on Florida as it slips into isolation.

Virginia took on the mantle of the Restored United States. They assumed the moral responsibility for reunification, and by taking Washington they were able to secure much of the federal assets and infrastructure available to the country before the collapse. They then commandeered many ships and weapons housed overseas that weren’t lost during the first two months of disarray. They began to gather support among the neighboring states and press their advantages– intelligence, military strength and the symbolic leadership they held by holding D.C. One strategic advantage they wished to push was their economy.

While the rest of the former United States was in complete economic disarray, Virginians’ consistent use of the dollar provided a stability that others didn’t have. They wished to solidify this with control of the nation’s gold supply housed in a crossroads what was now a very desperate strategic region. After they peacefully brokered a treaty with Kentucky they received an attack on Fort Knox from forces located in Indiana.

Day 112: “When we arrived at Knox we received heavy resistance from the defenders. Their fire was, for the most part, inaccurate and they lacked unit cohesion, so we found ourselves at an advantage. Not that we are much better off. We received intel that their units were something of a haphazard array of whatever Marines, Sailors, Soldiers or Airmen came out of the woodwork and they just threw them together and called it a unit, much like our own.

Still they were professional warfighters. We were lucky they hadn’t yet made it to secure the fort. Back to Knox. We were able to take the base. The fact was that the Kentucky defenders were mostly woodsmen and good-ol-boys from the South. More a militia reliving stories of the Old South than an army, but they fought like wild dogs.

After a few hours their main line broke and they retreated back towards the center of the state. About halfway through the day we were able to break into the main buildings where the gold was supposed to be stored. Easily, it would be safe to say we were surprised at what we found. We arrived to find bloodstains in the main hallways and leading into the vault room.

The trail faded and we see that the vaults are all completely empty. Every last bar, every last ounce is gone. All that is left are red stains all over the room and bullet holes riddling the walls that look like they could have happened months ago. Those hicks didn’t even know they were guarding a giant empty building. Now the big question is…’So where is the gold?'”

Log of Lt Col. Thomas Scott 2nd Raider Battalion Midwestern Alliance.

At that time the nations were coming together in larger groups. They had access to larger populations to support military strength, economic power to reach out and fund the state, food sources, and leadership.

In the West, states along the coast received the most fighting. Washington began bombing San Francisco from the air to try and decapitate what had become the center of California’s leadership. Retaliation strikes from combined naval and air forces severally weakened Portland, Tacoma, and Seattle. California launched a two-pronged attack by sending in land forces up Interstate Highway 5 and Marines to attack from the North.

Their mission was to enter Washington through the Salish Sea and secure Mt. Vernon, preventing escape of enemy forces. The Marines were by and large undetected and completed their mission successfully. The Californian army received shelling on their movement near the town of Cresswell, Oregon. They retreated back to the nearby town of Cottage Grove and secured the Airport there.

Now a temporary air base had been established and sorties began taking place allowing for the immediate deployment of troops to the defending town of Eugene. Casualties were high, but once Eugene was secured the way was open to take Portland.

Day 234: “I don’t know what the Army is doing. We have been here holding the Canadian border for days and the Army still hasn’t made it past Eugene. Just get it out. Burn the city to the ground. Mow them down. Just do your damn job. It’s us or them. Make it happen for God’s sake.”

Private First Class Anthony Sullivan – 1st Californian Marine Regiment

In the East the Restored United States was desperately in need of sound military strategy and allies. They had now become completely surrounded by enemy states. Such a solution came through the plan brought about by one General David Meznick. The Meznick Doctrine called for the destruction of strategic economic assets in the North to weaken their ability to make war.

The greatest of these were the attacks on the infrastructure of the Great Lakes’ shipping system. With the locks destroyed and the Erie Canal in ruins, shipping between Chicago and the outside world had ended. New York was also cut from its most valuable resource which was the hope of once again shipping America’s goods to the rest of the world after the war.

This maneuver had massive consequences to the region. Now deprived of many of their shipping lanes, the Midwest Alliance began to break as food and other supplies were unable to reach its people. Riots in Chicago began to erupt as the people accused the government of corruption, which for all purposes was true. Seeing the coming of the end, much of the Chicago legislature slipped out in the night and booked passage to Montreal on private planes.

Left without leadership and provisions, the Alliance crumbled. Its resources became split between the Texas Republic and Restored United States with what was now known as the New England Union claiming Ohio.

In the South, tensions between Florida and the Neo-Confederates had reach their zenith. Troops had taken Tallahassee and were dug in along the Jacksonville-Gainesville Line. Florida was desperate. In a deal made in Houston, Florida agreed to join Texas if it was free to maintain its sovereignty in exchange for military support. With this, Florida and the forces staged in New Orleans attacked.

The Jacksonville-Gainesville line was pushed back. Floridian forces moved with speed to besiege Atlanta as Texas occupied the city of Montgomery, Alabama. Texas and Florida forces converged on Atlanta and the siege went on for another month. No one really knows what led to the succeeding events, but a fire broke out in the city. Reports blame Texas shelling or Floridian sabotage, but most official accounts believe that it originated in an apartment complex where a family had been prying up floorboards to burn for heat.

The fire spread to the rest of the neighborhood and, lacking their emergency infrastructure, parts of the city were overcome as the rest began to go into disarray. Texas forces secured the major areas of the city while Florida troops took charge of the relief effort for escaping refugees.

The next hundred days were among the most peaceful of the war.The lines between the Republic of Texas and the Californian Union of Democratic States were now amassing troops and solidifying their positions. The Northeastern cites were in the processes of being rebuilt after California gained control as were the cities of Montgomery and Atlanta. Old forces of the losing states’ armies were redistributed to victor nations.

Texas held a tenuous peace with the Restored United States as they erected fortifications along the 36th parallel and western side of the Mississippi. California and Texas began building in unison a mass of fortifications on either side of the Continental Divide. Texas also enjoyed use of the river as shipping lanes now connected everything from the Midwest to the Carolinas. This eased the growing concerns of food shortage and redeployment of men.

Most of the fighting was centered between the Restored United States (RUS) and New England Union (NEU). Control of Ohio and Pennsylvania changed hands a few times as the region sought stability. The war reached a turning point when a New York based flotilla made a decisive push to take Washington D.C.  In response, a nuclear device was used on the fleet and all the ships, sailors and Marines on that mission were lost.

The first active use of a nuclear weapon in more than half a century sent waves through the warring nation states. Other nations of the world grew terrified as they waited for the NEU’s strategy. The worst fears came to pass when a weapon was exploded in Washington D.C. bringing down the powerbase of the Restored United States. Alarms across the world rang out as the RUS gathered itself and prepared to launch retaliatory strikes along the Eastern Seaboard. Before this came to pass a message from New York City came initiating their surrender.

The device had been set by a rogue general from New York. Fearing its own impending annihilation, New York City seceded from the Northeast to become its own independent city-state. The rest of New England issued their surrender and joined the Restored United States without incident. The Capitol was moved to Philadelphia.

Day 647: “I can’t believe Washington’s gone. I mean, what are we even fighting for? There is nothing left that was the same. I swear I am starting to feel like all we are animals trying to survive, fighting over the scraps of our fathers. We all knew it was over when D.C. got smoked, but at least that didn’t happen. Many of the men are still sure that NYC planned this out. Leave the rest to fight over the charred out ashes while they run from it all. I just don’t know what to think. Now we are inheriting the Northeast and all its problems. They better be ready. Now Texas has us to the West and South along Carolina. Two years this has been going on and for what? I don’t know how long we can keep this going.”

Log of Col. Thomas Scott 1st Marine Regiment Restored United States.

During the next year the war reached a standstill. Maneuvers and deployments mounted the full force of all three nations. Tensions mounted as the borders grew more and more defended.Texas forces were spread thin. They held the most land, the longest borders and the least population to support their land. It was composed of the elite Texas troops, highly militant neo-confederates, thousands of independent militias and partisans as well as millions of individuals ready to fight their own private backwoods battles.

The Restored United States was a broken nation. Much of it was the remains of conquered other nations. The former state of New York was now missing its greatest assets, income from the the Midwest and international access from New York City. The Capitol had been lost. Their people were now disheartened and disillusioned. The nation they lived in was nowhere near what they were experiencing, yet they still had to survive. A new national identity was forming.

California was doing well relatively speaking. Though there was damage done to the major cities, they enjoyed a good deal of time to rebuild. Their troops were stationed along the divide. Border tensions began to build until a small town skirmish in Wyoming escalated the war to its peak.

Wyoming was now effectively existing on two sides of the divide. Many of the services and resources were split between a small segment of the Western end of the state and the rest of Wyoming. The distance from California was too great for support from San Francisco to offer the Western segment of the state.

In many ways they were fending for themselves. Near the division line were two towns, Green River and Rock Springs. Green River lay on the Western side of the state. They also held the only viable water resource between the two. Since the war began, they were able to share, but after rationing was instituted by the Republic, Rock Springs began to need more of the water.

Though neither truly identified as Texan or Californian, they were now forced to abide by their laws. Rock Springs was in demand of water. Green River was forced, however, not to abide. Officers from California were sent to enforce the policy to not aid the enemy in any form. After frequently being denied, leadership of Rock Springs went to the town and make a formal request with the officers at Green River. The officers had taken over the mayoral office of the town. The officers denied again Rock Springs’s request.

One young man, Jeffery Irving, protested violently. A scuffle began in the office before the officers drew their side arms. Two of the men were shot and Jeffery was killed in the office of the Green River courthouse. The next day citizens from Rock Springs came to the city and stormed the mayor’s office. The two officers were barricaded in the office and requested for support from a nearby base. An hour later troops arrived in the town. They discovered the office broken into and the officers murdered. The order was given to track down the perpetrators. California troops made their way to Rock Springs.

While in town they barricaded the main road where they began searching passing vehicles and taking people in for questioning. A crowd began to build. Taunts and screams let out from the crowd. The crowd became violent. A rock was thrown at the soldiers. A rifleman knocked a man to the ground with the butt of his weapon…

“Crack.”

A gun shot sounded from one of the windows on Main Street. The soldier fell down beside the man on the ground. The crowd was silent and a moment of stillness seemed to roar throughout the valley.

A soldier began firing on the window; others fired at the crowd. In a moment the entire crowd was under fire. They ran for the nearest building and anywhere for cover. As the firing stopped the lives of dozens of men, women and children lay frozen on the street. The detachment gathered themselves and left the town before a battle began between themselves and the townspeople. This was the Massacre of Rock Springs.

Day 812: “When we arrived most the bodies had been carried away. Some were lined along the street covered in sheets of white stained crimson. The town was in shock as our troops began filling the streets. Mothers were screaming with anguish as old men roared for action.

There was talk of many of the men leaving an hour before we arrived to handle things themselves. I don’t think they know what they’re getting themselves into. We won’t be able to assist them. I feel for these people. I am shocked with them.

They are Texas citizens now and we let this happen. It won’t go unavenged for long though. I haven’t seen this many troops gathered like this since we took Atlanta. This is definitely going to be the big push we have all been waiting for to take California. All Hell is about to break loose. God protect us as we march on California.”

Journal of Sgt. Alexander McAnally 33rd Texas Infantry Regiment

A massive invasion force gathered at Rock Springs. Six divisions of the Texas Army and the 1st and 3rd Marines were mobilized for the battle. In the morning B-2s from Whiteman AFB in Missouri began strategic bombing sorties against a number of Californian Union air bases. Conventional bombing missions were also launched.

Suffering the greatest were bases near Salt Lake City, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Air defense was  launched from bases in San Diego, LA and Sacramento with relief forces in the North. Next came what was known as the battle over Nevada. Fighter squadrons met over the desert in many numerous engagements to gain air superiority. Texas was equipped with superior aircraft since they were the only power still investing heavily in improving their local manufacturing capabilities and advancing military technology.

They also had the advantage of more experienced warfighters from the wars in the East. California was heavily invested in passive defense systems scattered throughout the desert. Their missile defenses tore heavily into the Texas planes. The air battle was by far the largest air battle in history with thousands of planes involved and hundreds lost to the skies. The fighters from Texas were able to protect bombers in raising the remaining defenses in Salt Lake and Las Vegas while severely damaging others in Los Angeles, San Diego and China Lake.

The Battle of Salt Lake began the Land War. With the region softened, Texas mobilized forces invaded Northern Utah by way of the Forward Operating Base Rock Springs and following Interstate 80. They met fierce resistance in Salt Lake city. Sniper and rifle teams were thoroughly entrenched along with machine-gun nests.

Five battalions of thoroughly entrenched Californian infantry were able to hold the city for three days against the overwhelming Texas forces while the air war continued over the sands of the Great American Desert. On the fourth day of courageous fighting the Californians retreated as relief troops arrived. The Texans were now dug into the hollowed-out shell of the former capital of Utah. From this point the Siege of Salt Lake lasted another three weeks.

The battle continued. Texas reinforcements joined on day six. The battle intensified. Texas was the first to escalate. M.O.A.B. bombs were dropped and cleared away a great deal of California defenders. Texas movements quickly divided and overwhelmed the Californians. 6000 were lost and the Californians retreated back to Sacramento. Once Salt Lake was secured Republic forces moved on to Las Vegas.

Vegas was easily secured after the battle of Salt Lake. Republic forces gathered in the desert city preparing for the push to Los Angeles. As the army moved out they destroyed the Hoover dam to prevent Las Vegas from becoming a strategic point again. This caused a surge in the Colorado river that destroyed the Davis, Parker and Imperial Dam systems as well. The region would become by modern standards a completely uninhabitable desert again.

It was then that something unexpected happened. The Restored United States attacked in an unsuspected maneuver designed to strike when the Republic and Californian Union were entangled and spread thin. General Meznick again planned out a massive attack to take out the knees from under the Republic forces. His plan was to take out the port at New Orleans and land a decisive series of blows against Texas.

As Republic troops moved out to Southern Nevada, covert agents blew the dikes holding back the flood waters from the Gulf.  The city, its troops, its ships and resources were all flooded and in disarray. Air strikes and land forces were also made on the stations and bases along the Mississippi River, including Whiteman and the B-2’s stationed there. Transport  boats carried thousand to secure the bases along the river down to Baton Rouge. From there bombers cleared a path through to Beaumont, Texas, and on to Houston. Texas Defense forces scrambled to meet the invasion. With eyes to the West, few were prepared for an attack in the heart of Texas.

Reserves from Dallas and Austin raced to Houston. The battle intensified. After the destruction of New Orleans, naval forces stationed in the Atlantic maneuvered to support the Texas invasion. Without the support of the New Orleans ships at port, the Republic Navy was overcome. Naval bombardment was laid down on the defenders in Houston, paving the way for the surgical team of RUS soldiers and the wave of troops following the river.

The defenses were hindered by the sea of terrified citizens fleeing Houston. As shells rained down from the sea, chaos ensued. The city was going to be lost.

With the loss of Houston imminent, Republic soldiers spread thin on two fronts, and the country severed down the spine of the Mississippi, Texas made a last desperate strike.

It is believed the first city to fall was Chicago. Boston and Philadelphia came shortly after. At the same time, San Francisco and Seattle were lost. Retaliatory strikes claimed Austin, Houston, Atlanta and Oklahoma City. It is believed that many other cities were targeted for destruction, if not for the intervention of some unknown power.

Four high-altitude nuclear devices were detonated over the former United States. These weapons showered the region with energized electrons that shorted the circuits of electrical devices in their target radius. Below is a graphic representation of what this blast did to the United States.

Most of the country fell into regions of 50 to 80% damage, however considering overlap, historians assume that the damage was at least 90% to all of the continent and all its coveted luxuries were reduced to plastic and glass. This of course didn’t stop at the devices themselves, but everything networked into the infrastructure was brought down as well.

The four devices together were seen from various parts of the country. Their effects brought down all major computer systems, information networks, communication relays, and nearly all circuit-based technology on the continent. There is no official record of who fired the weapons.

Any logs created were probably lost in the very blast they created. Many believe that it was a last ditch effort to limit the destruction of the United States in the event of Atomic Holocaust. Some believe it was due to international intervention. The world’s final discipline upon them for what they were doing. Many of the religious groups who would come from this era believe it was the work of God, though they cannot agree whether it was a sign of his mercy or punishment upon a sinful nation.

Whoever was responsible, the truth is that the devices probably stopped more bombs than actually went off that day, but they didn’t protect anyone from the next five years. America was dark.

Day 842: “I was out on the porch catching fireflies with Jamie on the night the lights went out. We had caught a whole jar full when I saw a bright light come from the sky way far off in the North. Daddy screamed and jumped on us and he held me really close as we fell to the ground.

The light grew really bright and then all of a sudden this wind crashed the field. The wind whooshed through like it was going to carry Daddy, me, and Jamie away. Then it went away. I looked up and the light in the sky faded away.

I watched it dim until it turned to nothing.

Then I looked around and realized I couldn’t see anything. All the lights in the house went off. All the other houses did too. All the street lights were off and the whole town was dark. I asked Daddy what had happened. “I don’t know,Sweetie. We need to get back into the house before it gets too cold.” I looked hard and tried to find a path back to the porch.

Then I saw the light flicker on Jamie’s cheek. The jar in her hand began to flicker and I could see the fireflies coming back to life. It wasn’t much, but they were the only lights for miles and Jamie was all I could see.”

The Diary of Sarah Brennan

Day 846: I don’t know which is worse, the casualties we suffered at Salt Lake or the retreat back through the Sierra Nevadas. We lost the vehicles and had to go the rest of the way on foot once we reached the California border.

All the trucks stopped dead and everything’s gone silent. We have lost all contact with San Francisco. I am trying to keep the men going, but I honestly don’t know if I am going to be able to keep any of us alive. The snow is thick and is keeping us moving at a crawl. Foraging is not providing us the food we need. We have already lost as many men trying to get back to the base as we did in the battle. My greatest fear is that the men will begin to realize where we are.

I don’t know why God would put me in this situation in the middle of the Donner Pass. Please don’t let the men know what happened here and start to get any ideas. We are no longer being pursued. Perhaps they know how desperate we are. Please Lord, just let us make it out the pass.” 

Log of Lt. Joseph Ramirez, 3rd California Infantry Regiment

After the collapse came the period historians remember as the American Dark Age.

Five years passed. With all the infrastructural losses came a loss in leadership. The cities were evacuated due to no water, food, or power coming in. Towns like Ardmore, Oklahoma became overnight metropolises taking in the flood of humanity escaping from cities like Dallas and the  ruins of Oklahoma City. A local Indian casino to the South from before the war became a refugee camp for more than 60,000 people. The Oklahomans welcomed them warmly as now there was no war. There was no Texas, nor California and certainly no America. Now everyone was simply a survivor of the 2nd American Civil War.

In the chaos of the collapse, micro-wars sprang up. With no government protection, towns and villages attacked one another. Local Sheriffs declared themselves Generals of fifty-man armies.  Much of the former United States fell into a feudal bid for power waging county against county and town against town. They fought battles over salt mines, water from a local creek, or farmland.

In the South a plague swept through the countryside. Many reputable reports indicate that it happened when the controls at the CDC in Atlanta were destroyed after the bombing or from the EMP. Genocides and ethnic cleansing also scarred the landscape in Chicago, Alabama, Miami and Los Angeles.

It was towns like Ardmore, Oklahoma that finally brought us out of the dark. They rebuilt the agricultural backbone and got people back to work now that peace was assured through the destruction of the capacity to make war by the large nation-states.

Veterans gathered to provide a unified defense force for the new agrarian cultures that built themselves out of the ashes. New farms were established and refugees built homes all along the landscapes. As food became less of an issue for the people, factories began to rise again. The infrastructure began returning as power was restored, transformers were replaced, networks were brought back online. As the towns became secure and prosperous again people moved back into the cities.

Dallas, Sacramento, Columbus, and Richmond rose to become important regional powers again. The eyes of the nation looked to these cities as fears of the rekindling of the Unification wars began to surface. Old hatreds began to echo.

It was from Dallas that a movement started. One young girl led a peace movement from the heart of the former Republic of Texas.

Day 2871: “This girl in Texas is calling for us to formally end the hostilities. I don’t know if I could ever trust someone from Texas again, but she was just a girl when this whole thing started. It’s not like she is to blame for anything, but it is just hard to get behind someone from down there. We are tired, there isn’t anything left worth fighting for. If there is anything left it would have to be that this has to end before it all happens again.”

Sgt. Anthony Sullivan – California Civil Restoration Administration

Day 2912: “Give this girl your support. What we did was criminal. As a people we destroyed what took great men hundreds of years to bring together. It took us less than two years to bring each other to the brink. We lost our greatest cities and our best people. Now there is one of our own calling for repentance and recompense. Pray for her strength and success.”

Pastor Joseph Ramirez

Day 2945: “There’s going to be a peace conference in New York City. They’re back up and running for the most part. Hopefully we can do something good there. I will be part of the delegation from the RUS. We haven’t thought of ourselves as that for years. Still, we have to go and let it be known that Columbus doesn’t want anymore fighting. We are more than this collection of third-world city-states that are built on the breakdown of our legacies. I hope this little girl from Dallas is more than hopes and dreams.”

Mayor Thomas Scott of Columbus

Day 2953: As the much talked-about New York City peace accords prepare to open, all the attention of the country is on this girl from Oklahoma. She was one of the early people to flee with her family from Texas. She, with her father, mother and young sister, lived with family on a small farm in Southern Oklahoma. There they survived the conscription notices for service, the bombings, The Dark and the two-year winter.

She took up work in an old cookie factory, now shelling pecans from local harvests. After the Dark she administered relief efforts at a local Indian casino for refugees fleeing Texas after the they lost power and feared their own annihilation. She was able to gain respect and was eventually made responsible for finding the refugees work on the local farms.

Thousands knew her for work and generosity. She built up relief shelters to gather together aid to the refugees and give them jobs. While still barely in her 20’s she was one of the main people responsible for the rebuilding of vital resources in Oklahoma City. When the lights came back online and grocery shelves were stocked again in Dallas, she was there. Pushed into local politics she was a unifying force for the region.

While in Dallas she championed a peace movement. Dallasites and Texans began to question if the war should continue, if their safety could be secured with the history of the war and Texas’ role in it. She was the voice of reason in a sea of fears. She gained support from those she helped and her message spread across lands owned by the Republic and all the way to Columbus and Sacramento.

Now leaders from across America are going to New York City and are meeting for the first time since the break-up of the United States to discuss a resolution to the failed Wars of Reunification. In her honor, the much talked about Brennan Treaty will be presented to the delegation, ratified and hopefully pass within the week. Here’s to hope and to Sarah Brennan.

Jennifer Aranda – New San Diego Union Tribune

– End

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NOW WATCH: See 240 years of US Army uniforms in 2 minutes

The man who used to be the "Kremlin's banker" says that as long the Russian president Vladimir Putin remains in power, he's the richest person in the world.

“Everything that belongs to the territory of the Russian Federation Putin considers to be his," Sergei Pugachev told The Guardian's Luke Harding. "Everything – Gazprom, Rosneft, private companies. Any attempt to calculate it won’t succeed.

"He’s the richest person in the world until he leaves power.”

Although Putin's exact wealth is unclear, hedge fund manager Bill Browder previously estimated it at $200 billion during an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria. 

(As a reference point, that would make Putin 2.5 times as rich as Bill Gates, who is considerd to be the world's richest man.)

"After 14 years in power of Russia, and the amount of money that the country has made, and the amount of money that hasn't been spent on schools and roads and hospitals and so on — all that money is in property, Swiss bank accounts, shares, [and] hedge funds managed for Putin and his cronies."

The "first eight or 10 years about reign over Russia was about stealing as much money that he could," Browder added.

Pugachev said Putin's immense wealth is not an accident.

"Putin wanted get rich, too. He was a pragmatic person," he added. "We talked about this. He didn’t want to leave office poor."

Back during Putin's first two terms, Pugachev was a big player in Moscow. He founded Mezhpromback (International Industrial Bank) in Moscow in 1992, and soon known as the "Kremlin's banker." He even claims to have been one-third of threesome that put Putin into power.

However, relations between Putin and Pugachev soured in 2010, and he ultimately fled to London in 2011. 

The fact that, as per Pugachev, Putin considers everything in Russia "to be his" might seem shocking, but it's important to note that the concept of property rights in Putin's Russia is rather different from that of the West.

"A prominent businessman ... said that Mr. Putin had eroded the very notion of property rights in Russia, even for those who displayed fealty. He said that Mr. Putin himself had described private ownership of strategic industries with the Russia word to roost.

"‘A chicken can exercise ownership of eggs, and it can get fed while it’s sitting on the egg,’ he said, ‘but it’s not really their egg,’” according to the New York Times.

SEE ALSO: Putin fired more than 100,000 people

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The US just introduced a new type of bomb into its already extensive arsenal, and it may just be the most alarming US weapon yet, Zachary Keck writes for The National Interest.

The new bomb is the B61-12. On its surface, the bomb does not appear to be as dangerous as other weapons in the US arsenal. Although the B61-12 is nuclear-armed, it has a yield of 50 kilotons — tiny compared to the largest nuclear bomb that the US possesses, which has a yield of 1,200 kilotons. 

But as Keck notes, that difference in explosive power doesn't tell the entire story.

"What makes the B61-12 bomb the most dangerous nuclear weapon in America’s arsenal is its usability," Keck writes. "This usability derives from a combination of its accuracy and low-yield."

According to the Federation of American Scientists, the B61-12 will be able to strike within 30 meters of its target. This accuracy allows the bomb to destroy targets that would have previously necessitated the use of a larger but more indiscriminate weapon. 

As a result of the bomb's relatively low yield, the weapon would produce less nuclear fallout than earlier nuclear weapons, something which would limit unintended casualties from a nuclear attack.

But this lower fallout also lowers the cost and scope of a nuclear strike — which could in turn increase the possibility that the bomb would actually be used in a military engagement. 

As it is, the B61-12 may actually expand the range of possible US nuclear targets. In a 2014 conference organized by the Stimson Center, retired US Air Force General Norton Schwartz said that the B61-12's target set goes beyond that of previous gravity-guided nuclear bombs in the US military. This effectively means that the US could now consider the use of aircraft-delivered lower-yield nuclear weapons in a wider range of scenarios.

The concern over the B61-12 — and the thing that could make it is the most dangerous bomb in the US arsenal — is that such an accurate and usable nuclear weapon could encourage military thinkers to start imagining a wider variety of situations in which the use of nuclear weapons would be acceptable. 

Once the B61-12 is fully tested and deployed, it will be integrated into existing NATO forces and the F-35 in order to enhance the alliance's nuclear posture in Europe. 

SEE ALSO: The 30,000-pound bomb that could be used against Iran's nuclear facilities 'boggles the mind'

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A US-led raid on the compound housing the Islamic State's "chief financial officer" produced evidence that Turkish officials directly dealt with ranking ISIS members, Martin Chulov of the Guardian reported recently.

The officer killed in the raid, Islamic State official Abu Sayyaf, was responsible for directing the terror army's oil and gas operations in Syria. The Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL, or Daesh) earns up to $10 million a month selling oil on black markets.

Documents and flash drives seized during the Sayyaf raid reportedly revealed links "so clear" and "undeniable" between Turkey and ISIS "that they could end up having profound policy implications for the relationship between us and Ankara," senior Western official familiar with the captured intelligence told the Guardian.

NATO member Turkey has long been accused by experts, Kurds, and even Joe Biden of enabling ISIS by turning a blind eye to the vast smuggling networks of weapons and fighters during the ongoing Syrian war.

The move by the ruling AKP party was apparently part of ongoing attempts to trigger the downfall of Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

Ankara officially ended its loose border policy last year, but not before its southern frontier became a transit point for cheap oil, weapons, foreign fighters, and pillaged antiquities.

In November, a former ISIS member told Newsweek that the group was essentially given free rein by Turkey's army.

"ISIS commanders told us to fear nothing at all because there was full cooperation with the Turks," the fighter said. "ISIS saw the Turkish army as its ally especially when it came to attacking the Kurds in Syria."

But as the alleged arrangements progressed, Turkey allowed the group to establish a major presence within the country — and created a huge problem for itself.

"The longer this has persisted, the more difficult it has become for the Turks to crack down [on ISIS] because there is the risk of a counter strike, of blowback," Jonathan Schanzer, a former counterterrorism analyst for the US Treasury Department, explained to Business Insider in November.

"You have a lot of people now that are invested in the business of extremism in Turkey," Schanzer added. "If you start to challenge that, it raises significant questions of whether" the militants, their benefactors, and other war profiteers would tolerate the crackdown."

A Western diplomat, speaking to The Wall Street Journal in February, expressed a similar sentiment: "Turkey is trapped now — it created a monster and doesn’t know how to deal with it."

Ankara had begun to address the problem in earnest — arresting 500 suspected extremists over the past six months as they crossed the border and raiding the homes of others — when an ISIS-affiliated suicide bomber killed 32 activists in Turkey's southeast on July 20.

Turks subsequently took to the streets to protest the government policies they felt had enabled the attack.

Amidst protesters' chants of "Murderous ISIL, collaborator AKP," Erdogan finally agreed last Thursday to enter the US-led campaign against ISIS, sending fighter jets into Syria and granting the US strategic use of a key airbase in the southeast to launch airstrikes.

At the same time, Turkey began bombing Kurdish PKK shelters and storage facilities in northern Iraq, the AP reported, indicating that the AKP still sees Kurdish advances as a major — if not the biggest— threat, despite the Kurds' battlefield successes against ISIS in northern Syria.

“This isn’t an overhaul of their thinking," a Western official in Ankara told the Guardian. "It’s more a reaction to what they’ve been confronted with by the Americans and others. There is at least a recognition now that ISIS isn’t leverage against Assad. They have to be dealt with.”

SEE ALSO: Former ISIS fighter explains why he joined the terror army — and why he left after just 3 days

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NOW WATCH: Check out the hoverbikes that one company is building for the Defense Department

German and Dutch authorities say they identified a Russian physicist who was spying for Moscow, according to a report by the NL Times.

The man in question was identified as "Ivan A.," a physicist who was appointed to the Dutch Eindhoven University of Technology in 2013, and visited the Max Planck Institute in Bonn, Germany, as a guest lecturer three times somewhere between 2009-2011.

The German intelligence agency's suspicions were aroused when they noticed the physicist meeting with a Bonn-based Russian diplomat once a month.

The diplomat, who Germany identified as a Russian foreign intelligence officer, according to Newsweek, reportedly gave money to Ivan A. in exchange for information during these meetings.

Ivan A. and his wife were later arrested in Düsseldorf Airport in 2014. He was released shortly after, but his photo and fingerprints were taken and a formal investigation was launched. 

The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs revoked Ivan A.'s visa when he returned to Eindhoven, and he has since returned to Russia.

The NL Times notes that Ivan A. continues to deny any involvement in espionage activities, maintaining that he received the money for renting a Moscow apartment to the diplomat's friends.

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The Experimental Aircraft Association's yearly Airventure Airshow in Oshkosh, Wisconsin had some special guests this year, as the astronomically expensive, often-delayed, and much-hyped F-35A Lightning II made its commercial airshow debut.

The F-35 sped past crowds during several extremely low flybys. The F-35's agility was on display as it slowed into its approach with landing gear lowered. Then, as if the pilot had a sudden change of heart, the engines roared back to life, the gear retracted, and the F-35 rapdily climed again.

The Air Force's F-35A may have impressed its civilian audience this summer. But the epicly expensive new weapons platform still has a ways to go before it's combat ready. The estimated $1.5 trillion weapons project has been rife with cost overruns and delays. As the plane nears completion it still isn't clear that the F-35 is really an improvement over existing fighter jets, some of which were designed in the 1970s.

Several features of the plane have come in for criticism, including its overly complicated and not-particularly useful $400,000 helmet, which is oversized and limits visibility; and its onboard cannon, which doesn't hold much ammunition compared to earlier close-air support aircraft. The F-35 apparently can't outmaneuver the much older F-16 in a dogfight, either.

Despite the F-35's shortcomings, it looks like the plane will soon become a reality for the Air Force.

Here's video of the F-35's appearance in Oshkosh:

SEE ALSO: Watch the F-35 test its onboard cannon for the 1st time

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Jaysh al Fateh (the “Army of Conquest”), a coalition of anti-Assad forces that overran much of the Idlib province earlier this year, has launched a new offensive against the Assad regime.

The jihadist-led alliance is using its stronghold in Idlib to push south into the Al Ghab plain, which is considered strategically important for both the Syrian government and its opposition.

The jihadists and other rebel forces have long had the plain in their sights, but their recent advances in the province have fueled the current battle. Al Ghab lies to the south of Jisr Al Shughur, a city in Idlib that was captured by the jihadists in April.

If the new campaign is successful, then it will likely have ramifications for the Syrian government’s position in both Latakia and Hama provinces. Latakia, a stronghold for the Assad family, lies to the West of the Al Ghab plain on Syria’s coast. Hama lies to the south.

As in the past, Jaysh al Fateh’s various member groups are using their social media sites to provide updates on the fighting. The Al Nusrah Front, al Qaeda’s official branch in Syria, and Ahrar al Sham, anal Qaeda-linked insurgency organization, have published a steady stream of photos and videos since the offensive began.

Al Nusrah and Ahrar al Sham fight side by side in various alliances, including Jaysh al Fateh, with other groups throughout Syria.

Other organizations involved in the new battle reportedly include: Jund al Aqsa (a front for al Qaeda), Junud al Sham (a Chechen-led group that is linked to al Qaeda), the Turkistan Islamic Party (a predominately Uighur force that is part of al Qaeda’s international network), Ajnad al Sham, and Faylaq al Sham (or the “Sham legion,” which has been portrayed as a coalition of more moderate Islamist groups), among others.

On its official Twitter feed, Jaysh al Fateh claims that its fighters have already captured up to 11 locations, including towns, villages, and the Zeyzoun power station.

In the past, Assad’s fighters have repelled the insurgents’ attempts to capture Zeyzoun. But Jaysh al Fateh’s propagandists are advertising the alliance’s possession of the plant and underscoring its importance. Both Ahrar al Sham and Faylaq al Sham say the station is now in mujahideen hands.

In addition, a Twitter feed associated with Ahrar al Sham describes Zeyzoun as the largest power station in northern Syria. According to press accounts, the plant supplies electricity to Jisr Al Shughur and in Al Ghab.

In separate tweets, several of Jaysh al Fateh’s constituent groups also claim to have taken control of turf.

Many of the images produced thus far are branded with each individual organization’s logo, as well as the watermark for the Jaysh al Fateh coalition.

Ahrar al Sham published a photo claiming the Zeyzoun power station had fallen:

Here, Ahrar al Sham fighters pray at Zeyzoun after the plant’s “liberation from the hands of Assad’s militias:”

Faylaq al Sham also claims Zeyzoun has been “liberated:”

The two maps below, produced by Faylaq al Sham, purportedly show the anti-Assad coalition’s advances. Red indicates regime control, while green signifies Jaysh al Fateh’s gains:

The Al Nusrah Front produced its own map at the beginning of the battle, as well as updated maps in the hours since. The first map below shows the regime’s presence (in red) before the offensive. Another map, immediately below it, shows Jaysh al Fateh’s advances (in green) mid-battle:

SEE ALSO: Former ISIS fighter explains why he joined the terror army — and why he left after just 3 days

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BOSTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday accused a former Chinese army serviceman of copying classified files from a U.S. military computer network while employed as a U.S. defense contractor in Kuwait in 2013.

Wei Chen, 61, of Westfield, Massachusetts, was charged with making a false statement and damaging army computers after he lied on a questionnaire about his foreign military service to get his as a computer system administrator. He later copied secret computer files onto a personal thumb drive and tried to conceal it by deleting network logs, according to a Justice Department press release.

If convicted, Chen faces as much as 15 years in prison.

Chen, a naturalized U.S. citizen, served in the China People's Liberation Army from 1971 to 1976 in an anti-aircraft unit, but did not disclose that fact in a background check questionnaire before he began working at Camp Buehring in Kuwait, according to the indictment.

The Justice Department said Chen used his security clearance to access secret-level documents, and copied email and documents onto his thumb drive. The statement did not say what he did with the files or what they contained.

"Military employees and DOD contractors must understand that if they lie to obtain a security clearance or intentionally violate computer security policies and then destroy evidence of that violation, they are committing crimes and we will prosecute them," U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Carmen M. Ortiz said in the release.  

It was not immediately clear if Chen has an attorney and efforts to reach him were not successful.

(Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Bill Trott)

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At the height of the cold war, America's underground was rife with dozens of hidden nuclear missile units. 

Some of these systems contained Titan II missiles, which carried the largest, single nuclear warhead of any missile of its kind in history — a record that stands today.

Titan II was a guided ballistic missile that was also the largest, most powerful nuclear weapons system ever deployed in the US. And it served one purpose: deterrence.

"The idea behind Titan II was to instill enough fear in the mind of the enemy to cause them to think twice about launching an attack against us," Chuck Penson, who is the archivist and historian at the Titan Missile Museum in Sahuarita, Arizona, told Derek Muller, the host of the YouTube channel Varitasium.

In his latest Varitasium episode, Muller takes us inside an underground base where one of these monster Titan II missiles still stand today, and he learns about the insanely-complicated steps it would have taken to actually launch this terrifying piece of human engineering in the event of an attack. 

Inside the missile was a weapon with incredibly destructive potential — 650 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Heroshima. Therefore, it's no surprise that on the entry door into the silo, where the Titan II missile stands, there is a sign that reads "CAUTION."

Though the Titan II missile still stands, it no longer carries its dangerous cargo.

One of the most interesting features in the silo are the sound-proof panels covering the walls. Without these panels to absorb the sound during a launch, the energy from the sound waves would actually shake the missile to pieces before it could life off.

The Titan Missile Museum in Arizona where this empty missile is located, includes the original site for one of the 54 underground silos across the country where deterrent missiles, like Titan II, were hidden throughout the late '50s and mid '60s.

The control center with all of the gadgets, switches, and buttons — including those that would initiate a launch — is located far from the missile. You get to through a series of long underground tunnels.

Another benefit, besides secrecy, to an underground launch sight was that if the enemy successfully detonated a bomb in the US, then they would be shielded from the radiation as long — as their base was not destroyed in the attack.

Once in the control room, Penson takes Muller through the multi-step process of what it would have been like to launch a Titan II missile. The first things that happens is that the speakers in the room sound an alarm that is then followed by a message with a series of random numbers and words.

This message should only have reached them if the president of the US, and only the president, had ordered it.

Everyone in the room copies down the message, compares notes, and if they agree on what they heard, then they go to a red safe — which is locked, of course — containing a series of what Penson calls "authentication cards."

Each card contains two letters. If one of the cards has the two-letter combination that matches the first two letters in the secret message transmitted through the speakers, then the control room is officially "go" for launch.

After that, you just have one more 6-letter code and two keys separating you from WW III. But the 6-letter code is on a wheel with 17 million possible combinations and the key slots are far-enough apart that you must have two people turning them at exactly the same time.

After you insert the 6-letter code, the commander counts down to the final key turn. The commander and his partner hold the keys down for 5 seconds straight, and then a terrifying green light illuminates the "Ready to Launch" panel.

"For all intensive purposes that should say 'Welcome to World War III' because that's pretty much what it boils down to. When you turn the key you are committed. There is no 'oops' switch," Penson said.

These precautions were taken to prevent a single person from launching a missile. After all, people can get pretty crazy and paranoid during times of war.

Although Titan II was never launched to prevent an attack on US soil (as far as we know), several of these missiles were launched. In fact, some were used to launch American manned missions through NASA's Gemini program to space.

Check out Muller's video below or on YouTube:

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Local officials released video on July 28 of Sandra Bland arriving at Waller County Jail.  The county hopes to provide more information about Bland's arrest after she was found hanged in a jail cell days after her July 10 arrest for a minor traffic offense. 

Officials said they released the videos to dispel rumors concerning her death, adding they have been under cyber attack concerning the incident.

Video courtesy of Reuters

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An unclassified email network used by Army General Martin Dempsey and other members of the U.S. military's Joint Staff has been taken off line because of suspicious activity, a Pentagon spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

Army Lieutenant Colonel Valerie Henderson said the unclassified email network for all users on the Joint Staff was taken offline by the Defense Department because of suspicious activity noted over the weekend and is "currently down."

"We continue to identify and mitigate cybersecurity risks across our networks," Henderson said. "With those goals in mind, we have taken the Joint Staff network down and continue to investigate."

Henderson did not specify the nature of the suspicious activity on the network. She said the network was taken offline by the department, not by the activity or any outside party. 

(Reporting by Sandra Maler and David Alexander; Editing by Eric Walsh)

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President Barack Obama’s top adviser on counterterrorism is unlikely to recommend that her boss issue a pardon to Edward Snowden, the former U.S. intelligence contractor who leaked classified information on American surveillance programs. The adviser on Tuesday reiterated a point that the Obama administration has previously stated: Snowden should be held accountable for actions the White House claims endangered the lives of men and women who keep the country safe.

“Instead of constructively addressing [his concerns over the intelligence programs], Mr. Snowden's dangerous decision to steal and disclose classified information had severe consequences for the security of our country and the people who work day in and day out to protect it,” Lisa Monaco, the White House adviser on homeland security and counterterrorism, said in a response to an online petition seeking Snowden’s pardon.

Since releasing thousands of classified documents online through several U.S. media outlets, including the Washington Post, in 2013, Snowden has been charged with violating the Espionage Act. That year, he sought asylum in Russia to avoid extradition to the U.S. and has reportedly remained there ever since. Snowden’s supporters have argued that he rightly exposed unsavory details of how the government spied on its own citizens and the leaders of other world powers, including its allies.

After acknowledging that Obama also had concerns over the scope of the surveillance programs, Monaco said Snowden’s offenses are not excusable. “If [Snowden] felt his actions were consistent with civil disobedience, then he should do what those who have taken issue with their own government do: Challenge it, speak out, engage in a constructive act of protest, and -- importantly -- accept the consequences of his actions,” Monaco wrote in the petition response.

She added: “He should come home to the United States, and be judged by a jury of his peers -- not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime. Right now, he's running away from the consequences of his actions."

The original petition -- published in June 2013 on the “We The People” website and signed by 167,954 people -- asked the White House for a “full, free and absolute pardon for any crimes [Snowden] has committed or may have committed related to blowing the whistle on secret NSA [National Security Agency] surveillance programs.”

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Britain's minister for defense procurement on Tuesday urged the United States to buy more UK-built weapons, saying current trade flows were too much of a one-way street.

The comments by Philip Dunne marked a public nudge by one of the United States' leading allies over the trade imbalance between the two countries.

"Trade often seems to go largely in one direction," Dunne told reporters during his first visit to the United States since the election of a new Conservative-led government earlier this year. "Put simply, we buy rather more from you than you buy from us."

Dunne said he raised the issue in a meeting with his U.S. counterpart, Defense Undersecretary Frank Kendall, telling him that more could be done to leverage the two countries' closely linked defense industries.

Dunne also met with U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work to discuss U.S.-UK collaboration efforts, including the cooperative development of the F-35 fighter jet.

Britain was the sixth largest exporter of major weapons between 2010 and 2014, with the United States accounting for 12 percent of those exports, according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

The U.S. State Department authorized more than $4.5 billion in sales of U.S. military equipment and services to Britain, a 2014 State Department report showed.

Dunne welcomed news the U.S. Marine Corps was likely to decide soon whether to declare an initial squadron of Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 jets ready for combat.

Britain is one of nine partner countries that funded development of the new warplane, and is expected to build about 15 percent of each of the aircraft.

Dunne said he did not expect significant changes to the UK's F-35 procurement plans ahead of a strategic review to be completed in 2020.

He said Britain expected to begin testing F-35 jets on an aircraft carrier in 2018 and start operational use from 2020.

A U.S. Department of Defense statement said Work and Dunne also discussed Britain's recent pledge to meet NATO's defense spending pledge of 2 percent of GDP for the next five years.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Andrew Hay)

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The U.S. price tag for waging war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria since last summer just breached the $3 billion level, with the budget for attacking the massive terrorist organization likely to grow substantially as American forces pick up the pace of jet airstrikes and drone attacks.

Turkey’s government agreed last week to allow the U.S. to launch both manned and unmanned military strikes against ISIS inside Turkey, a major breakthrough for the U.S. and its allies that have been constrained in launching fighter jets from aircraft carriers in the Gulf. Now U.S.-led forces can use Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base, which is strategically located near the Turkish-Syrian border, to better bear down on ISIS forces and emplacements in that region.

Air operations, including US-led air attacks against ISIS, account for most of the big spend, which has exceeded $3.21 billion since operations began last August. Defense Department records confirm that daily operations average $9.9 million a day, up from $9.4 million since “Operation Inherent Resolve” began.

The breakdown of expenses is as follows, according to DOD:

• Air operations: 53 percent
• Munitions and operational support: 23 percent each

If the war escalates or if the U.S. needs to pump up the power and resources, annual costs skyrocket into the tens of billions of dollars.

ISIS has proved to be a formidable and ruthless opponent, and the U.S. led effort has had mixed results at best in pushing them back. A DOD analysis accompanying the budget figures, however, shows “ISIS can no longer operate freely in roughly 25 to 30 percent of populated areas of Iraqi territory where it once could.”

The DOD tally of the successes of Operation Inherent Resolve, as the war effort is called, shows U.S.-led air forces have destroyed 7,655 targets, including 1,859 ISIS fighting positions, 2,045 buildings, 472 staging areas, 325 Humvees, 98 tanks and 154 oil infrastructure sites.

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NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - The head of one of Iraq's fiercest Shi'ite militias called the U.S.-led coalition's campaign against Islamic State ineffective and accused Washington of lacking the will to uproot radical Sunni jihadis controlling large swathes of Iraq and Syria.

Qais al-Khazali, leader of Iranian-backed paramilitary group Asaib Ahl al-Haq, said the anti-IS campaign had failed because of an American agenda to redraw the map of the Middle East along new borders.

"We believe the United States of America does not want to resolve the crisis but rather wants to manage the crisis," he told Reuters in an interview.

"It does not want to end Daesh (Islamic State). It wants to exploit Daesh to achieve its projects in Iraq and in the region. The American project in Iraq is to repartition the region."

Khazali said the US-led coalition had failed to ramp up the number of air strikes over time as he said it had pledged to do.

Asaib, along with the Badr Brigades and Kataib Hezbollah, are at the forefront of the Popular Mobilisation Committee, or Hashid Shaabi, the official Iraqi government entity organizing volunteers in the battle against Islamic State.

The Hashid Shaabi has become the most powerful military force in Iraq since the near collapse of the national army a year ago. Yet many paramilitary groups have come under fire for alleged abuses in Sunni areas reclaimed from Islamic State.

Khazali said Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi was under U.S. pressure to limit the presence of Shi'ite fighters in the campaign to retake the mostly Sunni province of Anbar from Islamic State.

"Now the American project is trying at least to limit the presence of the Hashid Shaabi to the borders of Fallujah and not reach Ramadi. This is the magnitude of the pressure from the American leadership now on the Iraqi prime minister," he said.

Washington and its Sunni Arab allies fear that involving Iraq's Shi'ite militias in battles to drive out IS militants from Anbar could lead to even more sectarian violence.

In the past few months, there have been reports of violations including killings, looting and burning of Sunni homes. Khazali denied the accusations.

"Despite the media whirlwind and exaggeration, no media outlet has been able to accuse the Shi'ite Hashid Shaabi of one (act of) genocide or of killing one innocent citizen," he said.

Mutual mistrust

Khazali was among the thousands of militia fighters, armed and wearing green camouflage military fatigues, who flocked to northern Iraq to battle Islamic State last June after it seized swathes of territory across Syria and Iraq.

The 41-year-old Iraqi donned the robe and white turban of a cleric when he spoke to Reuters at his office in the holy Shi'ite city of Najaf.

His militia started as a splinter group of the Mahdi Army, a paramilitary force formed by anti-American Shi'ite leader Moqtada al-Sadr during the US occupation. Under his leadership, it gained notoriety for its attacks against U.S. forces.

In 2007, Khazali was arrested by American forces for his alleged role in an attack on an Iraqi government compound in Karbala in the Shi'ite heartland of southern Iraq, which left five American soldiers dead.

He is now one of the most feared and respected Shi’ite militia leaders in Iraq, and one of Iran's most important allies in the country.

Khazali said mutual mistrust made it impossible for his group to coordinate with the United States.

"We do not agree to participate in any area where there are American strikes. We will place full responsibility on the American administration for any strike that happens under the guise of being a mistake," he said.

"The Americans do not trust us because we resisted them during the occupation. There is no prospect (for cooperation)."

(Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

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