Archive for June, 2017

Ukraine parliament restores NATO membership as strategic target – DefenseNews.com

WARSAW, PolandThe Ukrainian parliament has voted to restore NATO membership as the countrys strategic foreign policy objective.

The Verkhovna Rada passed a bill to amend the Ukrainian laws on national security and internal and foreign policies. The new laws hereby enact Ukraines commitment to achieve NATO membership strategically by having made it legally binding, the parliament said in a statement on June 8.

Passed by a majority of 276 MPs out of the 450 elected lawmakers, the bill represents a shift from Ukraines previous non-aligned policy. The move is expected to stimulate increased military cooperation between Ukraine and NATO allies. It is also likely to foster procurements of Western-made weapons and military equipment to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and spur partnerships between Ukraines defense industry and foreign players.

"What we heard today is a unanimous support for Ukraine in such a difficult time. We highly evaluate our cooperation with NATO in all spheres. We are very grateful for the support," Groysman said February 9.

Meanwhile, Kievs strengthened commitment to joining NATO is also expected to further strain its relations with Moscow. Last March marked the third anniversary of Russias annexation of Ukraines Crimean peninsula that followed a military intervention.

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Amid Russia tensions, US Army continues to build up Ukrainian forces, training center – ArmyTimes.com

A combat training center that U.S. troops helped establish in Ukraine plans to host brigade-sized rotations beginning in 2018, officials said.

Building up the NATO-run, interoperable combat training center is part of an overall effort to boost Ukrainian forces in the face of Russian aggression.

The U.S. Army has steadily ratcheted up its activities across Europe in a bid to reassure Americas NATO allies since Russias invasion of Ukrainian territory in February 2014. One of the most visible efforts is Operation Atlantic Resolve, a series of exercises that has grown to span multiple countries including the three Baltic states, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria.

Another piece of the reassurance effort has been a near-constant rotation of U.S. troops into Ukraine to train that country's forces.

On Wednesday, Col. Nick Ducich, commander of the California National Guard's 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, spoke to reporters about his tenure as commander ofJoint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine and his soldiers' efforts to boost the combat training center and Ukrainian troops.

Ducich deployed to Ukraine in 2015 with 54 of his soldiers to train the Ukrainian Ground Forces near Yavoriv.

In the 14 months that Ducich was in charge of the JMTG-U, he said the defense capabilities of the Ukrainian forces grew.

I see the Ukraine Ground Forces getting stronger each day, he told reporters during a media round table at the Pentagon.

The California Guard soldiers joined troops from 6th Squadron, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division out of Fort Stewart, Georgia, and multinational partners from Canada, Lithuania, Poland and Britain.

Ducich said there were about 400 Ukrainians staffing the training center when he left in December, and the goal is to have it entirely manned by Ukrainians.

The center, developed in 2015 and still in its infant stages, can accommodate a battalion, he said. It cant be compared to training centers in the United States yet because it hasnt had a comparable amount of time or money put into it.

It will take a while to develop that same edge that U.S. training centers have with opposing forces, he said.

The colonel said the Ukrainian forces are playing catch-up when it comes to defense capabilities because theyve had many obstacles to overcome.

Theres been over 20-plus years of neglect as far as funding, not just soldiers but training and infrastructure and equipment, Ducich said.

Now Ukraine is mobilizing its defense industries, ramping up its capabilities and improving its output of military officers, he said, adding that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said his goal is defense reform by 2020.

By 2018, the combat training center is projected to be able to accommodate a brigade-sized rotation with simulations and devices to mimic real-world scenarios, Ducich said.

The Ukrainian military is also working on retaining experienced combat soldiers.

Theyre starting to do that with pay scales, conditions of living, he said. What were seeing now is theyre taking some of those team leaders that have success and optimizing them as instructors [at the training center].

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Amid Russia tensions, US Army continues to build up Ukrainian forces, training center - ArmyTimes.com

Trump’s strain with Obama marks departure from presidential fraternity – CNN

They haven't spoken or seen each other since.

In the months after Trump and Obama carried out a peaceful hand off of power, the two have failed to develop any sort of working relationship, according to White House advisers and former administration officials.

Perhaps it's a predictable outcome for two men with a long and bitter history; to be sure, the ice-out is the product of deep-rooted enmity that extends well beyond differences in policy or style.

But in the scope of recent history, it's unprecedented for a sitting president and his predecessor to eschew even the faintest of ties.

"I don't think they have a relationship," said David Axelrod, who served as Obama's senior adviser during his first years in office. "President Obama did what he could to help during the transition but, obviously, there have been intervening events."

Cracks emerged before long, with Trump intervening in a dispute over Israeli settlements and later lashing out at the sitting President on Twitter. But on Inauguration Day, all appeared cheery as Obama and his wife welcomed the incoming first family to the White House for coffee.

Once Trump was installed in office, however, things progressively soured, culminating in Trump's March tweets accusing Obama of ordering surveillance of Trump Tower.

The baseless claim, which Obama's team denied, was said to irk and exasperate the former President. There was an effort to smooth things over, including in conversations between Trump's White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and Obama's former White House chief of staff, Denis McDonough.

But the talks never produced a phone call between the current and former presidents. And Trump, who hasn't backed down from his claim, continued his attacks on his predecessor.

"Well, he was very nice to me, but after that we've had some difficulties," Trump told CBS News in an interview in early May. "He was very nice to me with words and when I was with him. But after that there has been no relationship."

Since he made those comments, Trump has warily eyed Obama as he reemerges into public life. The two men were both in Europe last month, Obama for an appearance with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin and Trump for summit meetings with his new foreign counterparts.

Trump's first talks at NATO headquarters in Brussels had to be shifted to the afternoon to accommodate Merkel's schedule with Obama, according to people familiar with the meeting's planning.

This week, Obama met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after delivering remarks in Montreal that warned against authoritarianism -- remarks that were seen as veiled jabs at Trump.

Both Merkel and Trudeau participated in sometimes-tense G-7 meetings last month in Sicily, where Trump was isolated on issues like climate change.

Republicans close to Trump say Obama's active schedule with foreign leaders has caught the President's eye as he works to develop his own relationships with world leaders. But they stopped short of saying Trump has expressed worry about Obama's private conversations with foreign leaders.

"Even though President Trump may not like it, having Obama out there speaking with leaders, even if it's critical of Trump, is probably helpful," said Julian Zelizer, a presidential historian at Princeton. "He might be serving a diplomatic role that the administration itself is not fulfilling."

Presidents have long relied on their predecessors for advice on a job few could possibly understand. Sometimes they have called on members of the so-called Presidents Club to carry out tasks on behalf of the United States.

The current shutdown in ties between Trump and Obama amounts to the first time in decades a sitting president has closed off all communication with his predecessor -- and, by extension, one of the only individuals with direct knowledge of a role few have played.

"There are only six people on the planet who fully understand the demands of that job," Axelrod said. "It's often helpful, but certainly not mandatory, to be able to counsel with them. But that's totally up the discretion of the incumbent, who in this case has without evidence accused his predecessor of what would amount to a crime. That suggests to me that they're probably not chatting much."

As Bush's presidency wore on, he and Clinton developed friendly ties, speaking by phone with some regularity about the aspects of the job only they could understand.

Days before taking office, Obama convened all the living presidents to solicit advice about the job. Bush hosted the session in his private dining room. Historians said it was the first time all living presidents had convened at the White House.

About a month after later, Obama placed an unusual phone call to his predecessor to inform Bush he was planning to announce a withdrawal of troops from Iraq -- a conversation Obama's aides said was a "courtesy" to the man who began the war that Obama ran vowing to end.

The phone call, made from a holding room at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, was brief, but it did reflect open lines of communication between political and ideological opposites -- a channel that thus far hasn't been dug between Obama and Trump.

Last week, when Trump decided to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord, few even questioned whether Obama -- whose administration helped broker the landmark agreement -- would be given a heads up. Instead, Trump tore into Obama for negotiating, in his view, a humiliating deal that had foreign leaders laughing at the US.

Obama, in one of his first overly political statements since leaving office, declared Trump's decision to "reject the future" deeply misguided.

Withdrawing from the Paris agreement was one of the most consequential announcements of Trump's young presidency, which has been most successful in reversing Obama policies.

In taking those steps, Trump has made little effort to mask his disdain for his predecessor or his decisions, the open hostility reflecting a harsher tone than presidents past who took the country in new directions.

Even bitter rivals have found ways to reconcile.

Despite griping in private about each other's shortcomings, John F. Kennedy and Dwight D. Eisenhower carried out regular consultations about national security matters after Kennedy took power from the Army general in 1960.

Only three months after taking office, Kennedy was strolling the grounds of Camp David with Eisenhower discussing the botched Bay of Pigs invasion.

"No one knows how tough this job is until after he has been in it a few months," a bewildered Kennedy confessed to Eisenhower, according to his biographer Stephen E. Ambrose.

"If you will forgive me," Eisenhower replied, "I think I mentioned that to you three months ago."

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Trump's strain with Obama marks departure from presidential fraternity - CNN

Trump, in Miami speech, set to roll back Obama’s Cuba policy – Fox News

President Trump will head to Miami on Friday, home to a large and influential Cuban-American community, to unveil his administrations new Cuba policy -- which will roll back central parts of his predecessors efforts to normalize ties with the Communist island nation, according to a senior administration official and other sources.

While details on the changes to the policy have yet to be fully revealed, a U.S. official suggested that Trump would call for Cuban President Raul Castro to push for more political freedom and to release democratic activists in Cuban prisons, among other initiatives.

Trump is at the same time expected to announce a reversal in some areas of former President Barack Obama's previous steps toward normalizing relations including the opening of embassies between the two countries and the easing of flight restrictions between the U.S. and Cuba.

The final actions have not been set as the review over the specifics of the plan continues. However, there will likely be steps in restricting travel from the U.S. to Cuba; there are now daily flights from Florida to Cuba. Another directive being weighed is taking steps to limit American companies from dealing with businesses owned by the Cuban military, U.S. sources confirm to Fox News.

While campaigning in Miami during a stop in September of 2016, then-Republican presidential nominee Trump hinted at such a move, tying it to demands on the Cuban government.

All of the concessions Barack Obama has granted the Castro regime were done through executive order which means our next president can reverse them, Trump said. "And that I will do unless the Castro regime meets our demands.

Those demands include religious and political freedom for the Cuban people, and the freeing of political prisoners, Trump added.

Key Republican lawmakers Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Mario Diaz Balart, both Cuban-Americans from Florida, have been directly involved in working with the White House on the new Cuba policy, according to sources with direct knowledge of the situation.

Rubio, who opposed Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primary, has worked diligently behind the scenes with the administration to develop the approach, said a source directly involved in the policy discussions.

"I am confident the president will keep his commitment on Cuba policy by making changes that are targeted and strategic and which advance the Cuban people's aspirations for economic and political liberty, Rubio said in a statement.

A senior Rubio adviser previewed what may be represented during Fridays Trump Cuba policy rollout, including that the new approach would have to be in compliance with the statutory provisions passed by Congress which govern US-Cuba policy.

The aide also stressed that the new Cuba policy would be in the best interest of U.S. foreign policy and national security.

Part of the focus is to also encourage the emerging generation of Cuban leaders to take the reigns after Raul Castro steps down in 2018, as he publicly stated he would.

Raul Castro and his closest advisors are mostly in their 80's, the senior aide told Fox News, stressing they are focusing on the "long term."

Cuba will soon have a new generation of leaders, one way or another. These policy measures are designed to lay the groundwork for them to empower the Cuban people to develop greater economic and ultimately political liberty.

Fox News' John Roberts contributed to this report.

Serafin Gomez is a White House Producer for FOX News Channel, who also covered the 2016 election as a Special Events & Politics producer and former special campaign correspondent for Fox News Latino. Fin formerly worked as the Miami Bureau Producer for Fox News Channel where he covered Florida Politics & Latin America. Follow him on Twitter: @Finnygo

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Trump, in Miami speech, set to roll back Obama's Cuba policy - Fox News

Sen. Rand Paul: Finding Washington Leaker Is Vital – Newsmax

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., addressed the importance of finding out who is leaking information out of Washington.

"A lot of leaks are coming out of the intelligence community and not all are benign," Paul said Friday on Fox News' "America's Newsroom."

The senator noted that giving information to others so they can leak is still a crime. "That's still leaking and it is still a crime if it were private conversations of individuals. I'm not saying [fired FBI Director James]Comey did that, but we do need to get to the bottom of who is the leak and who are the leaks in the intelligence community."

Paul said he believed Comey's Thursday testimony vindicated President Donald Trump. "Comey confirmed the president was never under investigation. Three times he told the president that. I guess I think it's understandable to me why thepresident would be a little bit put out with Comey and say to Comey, 'good grief, if you're telling me I'm not under investigation, why don't you tell the American people?'

"This cloud of an investigation is really damaging," he said.

The president said that the issues are distracting from the president's work to bring back jobs. "We need not to be too distracted by crazy allegations that, in the end, turn out to be really without substance," Paul said.

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