PrairiePundit

The Hill: The second-in-command of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard is warning it will close access to the strategic Strait of Hormuz if the United States or its allies “threaten” the country, Iranian state media reported Wednesday. “If the Americans and their regional allies want to pass through the Strait of Hormuz and threaten us, we will not allow any entry," Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami said on state TV. The strait, through which about a third of all oil traded by sea passes, has been the site of confrontations between the United States and Iran in the past. Recently, in December, Iran conducted a live-fire exercise with little notice just 1,500 yards away from U.S. and French aircraft carriers that were transiting the strait. And in January, in the Persian Gulf near the strait, the Iranian military warned a U.S. Navy ship that it was too close to a naval drill. “The Americans should learn from recent historical truths,” Salami said. Salami did not elaborate but w...

Washington Times: It’s time to supply our Special Forces operators with a stealth motorcycle. That’s the opinion of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which has tasked a San Francisco-based company with fulfilling the need. Logos Technologies has received a grant from DARPA to develop a “military-use hybrid-electric motorcycle with near-silent capability,” the international defense website Defence Talk reported . When it’s ready to deploy, the stealth motorcycle will be tasked with taking small teams of elite troops long distances over difficult terrain. Logos Technologies plans to deliver a “quieted, all-wheel-drive capability at extended range in a lightweight, rugged, single-track vehicle could support the successful operations of U.S. expeditionary and special forces in extreme terrain conditions and contested environments,” said Wade Pulliam, manager of advanced concepts at the company, told Defence Talk. ...  It would be a very quite dirt bike I expect...

Bill Gertz: China’s People’s Liberation Army is preparing to destroy U.S. computer and network infrastructure in future attacks and knock out satellites with microwave pulses, according to recently translated Chinese military writings. A senior colonel in the General Staff Fourth Department—the cyber warfare and electronic spying section known as 4PLA—wrote in one article that Chinese electronic network attack plans call for a “system of systems” destruction plan. U.S. cyber warfare combat capability “forms a great threat for our military in terms of carrying out joint campaigns and operations, and especially information operations,” wrote Col. Lin Shishan. “In this regard, we must establish the information combat concept of ‘attack and destruction of system of systems,’ and from the point of view of structural resistance, regard information systems of the main opponent as a whole, look for crucial points in the architecture which will serve as precise attack targets of inform...

James Lyons: With the addition of more than 21,000 combat troops being sent to Iraq plus the president's recent declaration to kill or capture Iranian Revolutionary Guard-Quds members these actions could be seen as a first step in addressing the Iranian problem. Further, the raid and capture of Iranian agents in the compound of Iraqi Shia leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim certainly reinforces that premise. The Iranian problem has been building for more than 27 years, manifested by the regime of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini conducting numerous attacks against the United States. First in November 1979, the radical "students" and possibly the current Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad overran the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held our diplomatic personnel hostage for 444 days. Aside from the various hostage takings, the next major act of war against the United States was the car bombing of our embassy in Beirut in April 1983 with the loss of almost all our Mideast operatives. ...

NY Times: Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned the United States on Thursday that Iran would retaliate against American interests worldwide if it was attacked. It was the latest volley in an escalating war of rhetoric between the countries. Speaking to a group of air force commanders about rumors of an imminent American military strike, Ayatollah Khamenei said, “Iranian people should not get scared of such issues,” the Iranian Student News Agency reported. “Our enemies know very well that any aggression will have a response from all sides by Iranian people on their interests all over the world.” He added, “No one would commit such a blunder and jeopardize the interests of his country and people.” Iran’s Revolutionary Guards also said Thursday that as part of a war games exercise, they had successfully test-fired a land-to-sea missile capable of sinking large warships. “These missiles, with a maximum range of 220 miles, can hit different kinds of big warships throughout...