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WASHINGTON (AP) — In anticipation of a new Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine, President Joe Biden on Wednesday approved an $800 million package of military assistance, including additional helicopters and the first provision of American artillery. The Ukrainians also will receive armored personnel carriers, armored Humvees, naval drone vessels used in coastal defense, and gear and equipment used to protect soldiers in chemical, biological, nuclear and radiological attacks. "This new package of assistance will contain many of the highly e...
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Russian invasion of Ukraine would be devastating and a wider European war even worse. Whether a larger war happens would depend partly on Russian President Vladimir Putin's ambitions, partly on the West's military response and partly on plain luck. Although U.S. and European officials have said for days that a Russian invasion appeared imminent, Putin's government on Tuesday publicly welcomed further security talks with the West. It also announced that some of its forces bracketing Ukraine will be returning to their regular...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Russia has assembled at least 70 percent of the military firepower it likely intends to have in place by mid-month to give President Vladimir Putin the option of launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, U.S. officials say. The officials, who discussed internal assessments of the Russian buildup on condition they not be identified, sketched out a series of indicators suggesting Putin intends an invasion in coming weeks, although the size and scale are unclear. They stressed that a diplomatic solution appears to remain p...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is ordering 2,000 U.S.-based troops to Poland and Germany and shifting 1,000 more from Germany to Romania, demonstrating to both allies and foes America's commitment to NATO's eastern flank amid fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Pentagon said Wednesday. Russia fired back with a sharply worded objection, calling the deployments unfounded and "destructive." Russian President Vladimir Putin also had a new telephone exchange with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. But readouts from both governments...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is ordering 2,000 U.S.-based troops to Poland and Germany and shifting 1,000 more from Germany to Romania, demonstrating to both allies and foes America's commitment to NATO's eastern flank amid fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Pentagon said Wednesday. Russia fired back with a sharply worded objection, calling the deployments unfounded and "destructive." Russian President Vladimir Putin also had a new telephone exchange with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. But readouts from both governments...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon ordered 8,500 troops on higher alert Monday to potentially deploy to Europe as part of a NATO "response force" amid growing concern that Russia could soon make a military move on Ukraine. President Joe Biden consulted with key European leaders, underscoring U.S. solidarity with allies there. Putting the U.S.-based troops on heightened alert for Europe suggested diminishing hope that Russian President Vladimir Putin will back away from what Biden himself has said looks like a threat to invade neighboring U...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Cold War ended 30 years ago this month, but one unresolved issue — how closely Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, can ally with the West — is now creating some of the deepest U.S.-Russian tensions in years. The dispute over Ukraine's status and its growing alignment with U.S.-led NATO will be at the center of President Vladimir Putin's video meeting Tuesday with President Joe Biden, whose administration says an extensive Russian military buildup near Ukraine points to a potential invasion. Russia denies any inten...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday rejected a request by Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt that his state's National Guard be exempt from a Pentagon requirement that all military members be vaccinated against COVID-19. Stitt, a Republican, had asked Austin in early November to suspend the mandate for members of the Oklahoma Guard. A spokesman for Stitt, Charlie Hannema, said in response to Austin's rejection letter that the governor "maintains his position" that he is commander in chief of the Oklahoma Guard while they are on T...
WASHINGTON (AP) — China is expanding its nuclear force much faster than U.S. officials predicted just a year ago, highlighting a broad and accelerating buildup of military muscle designed to enable Beijing to match or surpass U.S. global power by mid-century, according to a Pentagon report released Wednesday. The number of Chinese nuclear warheads could increase to 700 within six years, the report said, and may top 1,000 by 2030. The report did not say how many weapons China has today, but a year ago the Pentagon said the number was in the "low...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Colin Powell, the trailblazing soldier and diplomat whose sterling reputation of service to Republican and Democratic presidents was stained by his faulty claims to justify the 2003 U.S. war in Iraq, died Monday of COVID-19 complications. He was 84. A veteran of the Vietnam War, Powell spent 35 years in the Army and rose to the rank of four-star general before becoming the first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His oversight of the U.S. invasion of Kuwait to oust the Iraqi army in 1991 made him a household name, p...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The top U.S. military officer told Congress on Tuesday that he knew former President Donald Trump wasn't planning to attack China and that it was his job to reassure the Chinese of that fact in the phone calls that have triggered outrage from some lawmakers. Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, delivered a vehement defense of two calls he made to his Chinese counterpart, saying he was responding to "concerning intelligence" that China was worried about a U.S. attack. "I know, I am certain, that P...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The top U.S. military officer called the 20-year war in Afghanistan a "strategic failure" and told Congress on Tuesday that he believes the U.S. should have kept several thousand troops in the country to prevent the unexpectedly rapid takeover by the Taliban. In his first congressional testimony on the tumultuous withdrawal, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, refused to say what advice he gave President Joe Biden last spring when Biden was considering whether to keep any troops in Afghanistan. But he t...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon retreated from its defense of a drone strike that killed multiple civilians in Afghanistan last month, announcing Friday that a review revealed that only civilians were killed in the attack, not an Islamic State extremist as first believed. "The strike was a tragic mistake," Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, told a Pentagon news conference. McKenzie apologized for the error and said the United States is considering making reparation payments to the family of the victims. He said the d...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday that it's "possible" the United States will seek to coordinate with the Taliban on counterterrorism strikes in Afghanistan against Islamic State militants or others. Milley did not elaborate, and his comment did not appear to suggest immediate plans to work with the Taliban. U.S. military commanders coordinated daily with Taliban commanders outside the Kabul airport over the past three weeks to facilitate the evacuation of more than 124,000 people. Bu...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden made dubious assertions that the U.S. was well-prepared for the sudden collapse of Afghanistan's government during the U.S. drawdown and glossed over his broken promise to keep U.S. troops there until the last Americans are out. In his remarks Tuesday declaring an end to America's 20-year war in Afghanistan, Biden claimed "extraordinary success" in the mission. That defied the reality on the ground of a rushed and chaotic evacuation of Americans and their allies, including deadly violence around the airport...
WASHINGTON (AP) — On alert for more terrorist attacks, the U.S. military has begun its final withdrawal from Afghanistan in the closing stages of a frantic airlift of Americans, Afghans and others desperate to escape Taliban rule before the evacuation shuts down. President Joe Biden said Saturday that commanders told him an attack was "highly likely" over the next 24 to 36 hours. The remains of 13 American troops killed in a suicide bomb attack Thursday by the Islamic State group's Afghanistan affiliate, known as ISIS-K, were on their way to t...
WASHINGTON (AP) — By promising to strike the extremists who killed 13 Americans and dozens of Afghans, President Joe Biden now confronts the reality of finding and targeting them in an unstable country without U.S. military and intelligence teams on the ground and no help from a friendly government in Kabul. The president was warned Friday to expect another lethal attack in the closing days of a frantic U.S.-led evacuation. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden's national security team offered a grim outlook. "They advised the p...
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials pledged Wednesday that the military airlift of Americans and others from Kabul will continue until the final hours before President Joe Biden's Tuesday night deadline. But refugee groups described a disorganized, barely-there U.S. evacuation effort for Afghan allies that leaves the most desperate to risk beatings and death at Taliban checkpoints Some Afghans are reported being turned away from the Kabul airport by American forces controlling the gates, despite having approval for flights. "It's 100% up to the A...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has decided to stick with his deadline next week for completing the U.S.-led evacuation from Afghanistan, an administration official said Tuesday. The decision reflects a growing fear of extremist attacks at the Kabul airport but also opens Biden to domestic political complaints of caving to Taliban demands and of potentially leaving some Americans and Afghan allies behind. A Taliban spokesman, speaking prior to word of Biden's decision, said anew that the militant group would oppose any extension of the Au...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military reported its biggest day of evacuation flights out of Afghanistan by far on Monday, but deadly violence that has blocked many desperate evacuees from entering Kabul's airport persisted, and the Taliban signaled they might soon seek to shut down the evacuation. Twenty-eight U.S. military flights ferried about 10,400 people to safety out of Taliban-held Afghanistan over the 24 hours that ended early Monday morning, a White House official said. The chief Pentagon spokesman, John Kirby, said the faster pace of e...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The first forces of a Marine battalion arrived in Kabul on Friday to stand guard as the U.S. speeds up evacuation flights for some American diplomats and thousands of Afghans, spurred by a lightning Taliban offensive that increasingly is isolating Afghanistan's capital. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said "elements" of a battalion were now in Kabul, the vanguard of three Marine and Army battalions that the U.S. was sending to the city by the end of the weekend to help more Americans and their Afghan colleagues get out q...
WASHINGTON (AP) — It took only two months for U.S. invaders to topple the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, a seemingly tidy success against a government that had given refuge to 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden. Twenty years later, the United States is withdrawing — visions of victory long vanished and an ascendant Taliban arguably within reach of restoring their rule. Afghanistan proved to be a lesson in the limits of America's military power. It demonstrated the seeming paradox that it is possible to win the battles and still lose the war. Or...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon said Tuesday it canceled a disputed cloud-computing contract with Microsoft that could eventually have been worth $10 billion. It will instead pursue a deal with both Microsoft and Amazon and possibly other cloud service providers. "With the shifting technology environment, it has become clear that the JEDI Cloud contract, which has long been delayed, no longer meets the requirements to fill the DoD's capability gaps," the Pentagon said in a statement. The statement did not directly mention that the Pentagon f...
WASHINGTON (AP) — When he pulled the plug on the American war in Afghanistan, President Joe Biden said the reasons for staying, 10 years after the death of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, had become "increasingly unclear." Now that a final departure is in sight, questions about clarity have shifted to Biden's post-withdrawal plan. What would the United States do, for example, if the Taliban took advantage of the U.S. military departure by seizing power? And, can the United States and the international community, through diplomacy and f...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The projected cost of modernizing the U.S. nuclear force is escalating, including billions of dollars more to operate nuclear-armed submarines and to update Energy Department nuclear weapons laboratories and production facilities, according to a new analysis by the Congressional Budget Office. Critics of nuclear modernization are likely to seize on the new figures to bolster their argument for more modest upgrades. The nonpartisan CBO said Monday that operating and modernizing the nuclear force will cost $634 billion in the 2...
