WarSclerotic

Daniel Pipes: Public Receiving “Disinformation” – Middle East – News – Israel National News.

Daniel Pipes

Israel news photo: danielpipes.org

Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum, gave an interview with conservative political activist, Ezra Levant, as was reported by Israel Matzav, the popular blogspot for issues regarding Israel and the Middle East.

Regarding the continually deteriorating situation in Syria, Daniel Pipes stated that it is only a matter of weeks or months until the Syrian “tyranny” topples.  He noted, as others have written,  that the most important aspect, from a strategic point of view, is that a regime change in Syria will almost certainly result in the breaking of the Syrian alliance with Iran, which will cause “a real blow” to the Iranian regime. As of now, Iran uses their relationship with Syria as a means of transferring arms and money to Hizbullah and Hamas, and gaining influence in “the heart of the Middle East.”

Pipes said that while the Iranian military is, largely, out of date, Israeli officials have indicated that it has dispersed functions and continues putting facilities underground, some as far as 100 meters.  As Iran continues putting nuclear facilities underground at an increasing rate, the option of staging a pre-emptive attack will no longer be viable.

At this point, Pipes notes, Israel lacks the support of the United States and is, therefore, left with two feasible options to attack Iran. Either they can use fighter planes, striking key targets, although that option may not be viable in the near future.  The second option is to use tactical nuclear weapons based in submarines, which will, undoubtedly escalate the situation even further, but remains plausible.

The American administration, he said, does not put sufficient pressure on Iran and is not willing to exert the necessary force needed to curtail its nuclear ambitions.

He goes on to state that if the United States was, in fact, ready and willing to attack Iran, more options would be available. The United States has a larger military force, more planes, more ordinance, better intelligence and troops may be deployed on the ground, but says that it is highly unlikely that Israel would decide to take such a route.

Pipes said that while Iran has been on the international radar for quite a while, there is a newfound urgency to the situation. While there was always some sort of timetable with regards to Iran, it no longer remains in the distant future, and is taking on a heightened degree of urgency, with “July looming,” as a time at which a non-nuclear pre-emptive strike would no longer be feasible.

There has been a lot of media coverage and “chit chat by Israelis” as well as visits to Israel by top international officials, seeking to “cool down the Israelis.”

Pipes said that the public is being fed a great deal of “disinformation.” The man in the street cannot possibly discern the truth and everything the public thinks is true is mere speculation. Pipes said that it will probably be ten years before we learn the truth behind what is going on now.

THE DAILY STAR :: News :: Middle East :: 50 pct of Americans support strike against Iran.

At the Pentagon and in Israel, plans show the difficulties of an Iran strike – The Washington Post.

By Walter Pincus, Thursday, February 9, 3:43 AM

If you are not prepared to go to war, you cannot threaten that “nothing is off the table” as you search for diplomatic solutions.

Thus there are completed plans, updated daily, at Israeli military headquarters in Tel Aviv and at the Pentagon for carrying out attacks on Iranian facilities in a last-ditch effort to prevent Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Israel has a plan to go it alone. So does the United States. And there may even be a plan for the two countries to collaborate. On Dec. 20, the Joint Chiefs chairman, Gen. Martin Dempsey, told CNN: “We are examining a range of options” and “I am satisfied that the options that we are developing are evolving to a point that they would be executable if necessary.”

In any event, the plans exist, and they illustrate the difficulties in carrying out what some people think would be a simple operation.

For example, should Israel act alone, it would face the extraordinary problem of needing to refuel its bombers en route to targets about 1,000 miles away and refueling them again on the way back. That is why in the new Bipartisan Policy Center report, “Meeting the Challenge: Stopping the Clock,” former senator Charles S. Robb (D-Va.) and retired Air Force Gen. Charles F. Wald suggest that the United States provide Israel with three KC-135 refueling tankers.

Robb and Wald do not advocate that the Israelis undertake such an attack, but they say that providing the tankers would “extend the effective range of Israeli aircraft” and “improve Israeli credibility.”

Then there are questions about what targets should be hit, and how many planes would be needed, to stop Iran’s nuclear program, even temporarily. Israel’s two past successes hardly count.

When Israel knocked out Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in June 1981, it was essentially one ground-level building, yet the mission required 14 Israeli aircraft — F-16 fighter-bombers with some of their fuel tanks removed to carry heavy bombs, and F-15 fighters to handle any Iraqi planes that came up to meet them. Israel’s other success, hitting a partially constructed Syrian facility in September 2007, again targeted a single, ground-level building.

Now look at the potential targets in today’s Iran.

There is the fuel-enrichment plant at Natanz, a collection of below-ground facilities used to produce enriched uranium. There is the newer Fordow fuel-enrichment plant near Qom, built into the side of a mountain and heavily fortified. This is where Iran has already moved 3.5 percent enriched uranium from Natanz and where most analysts believe it will be enriched to weapons grade, if Tehran decides to take that step.

Of course there would be other targets if a strike is to do more than set back Iran by one to three years. At Parchin, one of the nation’s leading munitions centers, Iran is suspected of testing high explosives for use in nuclear weapons, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s November report. There is a uranium conversion plant at Isfahan, a heavy-water facility being constructed at Arak and centrifuge factories outside Tehran.

No telling how many aircraft the Israelis would need to carry out a meaningful mission. The Robb-Wald report says Israel has enough GBU-28 bunker-busting bombs to “severely damage, though likely not completely destroy, Iran’s known underground nuclear sites in a single well-executed operation.”

How Israel would or could deal with Iran’s response to such an attack is anyone’s guess.

U.S. planning takes Iran’s reaction into consideration. As one former Pentagon official said, “Pentagon planning considers hitting targets and defending against retaliation.”

The Robb-Wald report, put together by a task force that includes former military commanders, outlines just part of “what U.S. military action would look like,” in its words. The target list, beyond Iran’s nuclear facilities, would include communications systems; air defense and missile sites; Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities; munitions storage facilities, including those for sea mines (remember the Strait of Hormuz); airfields and aircraft facilities; and ship and port facilities, including midget submarines, missile boats and minelayers.

Aircraft employed would include B-2 stealth and B-52 bombers, fighter-bombers and helicopters, along with ship-launched cruise missiles. “Special Forces and intelligence personnel already in-theater can easily move to protect key assets or perform covert operations,” according to the report.

Remember that these plans are needed to make credible the threat that “nothing is off the table” — which in turn is designed to put muscle behind the diplomatic efforts. And those new sanctions, particularly cutting off Iran’s oil sales, are being pursued with effect.

Just this week, the United States continued pressuring India to reduce its oil purchases from Iran. State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland told reporters Tuesday that talks in Washington with Indian Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai included “how India might find alternative sources. . . . This is a two-track policy, both to encourage countries to wean themselves from Iranian oil, but also to work with suppliers around the world to help countries find alternative sources of supply.”

In his pre-Super Bowl interview on NBC last Sunday, President Obama said, “Our preferred solution here is diplomatic; we’re going to keep on pushing on that front. But . . . I’ve been very clear that we’re going to do everything we can to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and creating an arms race, a nuclear arms race, in a volatile region.”

He preceded that statement with the familiar “We’re not going to take any options off the table” — and now you have some idea of what that means.

ADL’s Foxman: Obama Has ‘Improved,’ But Iran Situation ‘Serious’.

By: Jim Meyers and Ashley Martella

The ADL’s National Director Abraham Foxman tells Newsmax that President Obama has shown improvement in his policies toward Israel, especially in regard to Iran.

But he warns that Israel is sending an urgent message that strong action must be taken against Iran’s nuclear program to forestall an Israeli attack. Foxman heads one of the nation’s premier civil rights organizations, with a special focus on anti-Semitism.

In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, Foxman says Obama’s grade on Israel has gone from an “F” two years ago to a a solid “B” today because he has “learned from his mistakes.”

Foxman specifically praised President Obama for standing with Israel in his speech to the UN last September and for sharing “bunker busting” bombs with the Jewish state.

With speculation growing about an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Foxman was asked if Israel should hold off on such a strike to give economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic time to work.

“If there is not to be military action to stop the nuclear arming of Iran, there needs to be serious, serious, heavy sanctions,” he says. “There has been more talk about sanctions than actual implementation.

“I think the talk about an imminent Israeli attack is a message to the world that if you want to be serious about Iran, then act quickly, act seriously. That will prevent the need for possible military action.”

Foxman says he believes Obama is serious when he vows that the United States will work closely with Israel to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

“One needs to look at two levels of this administration’s approach to Israel,” Foxman says. “Politically there have been some issues, but in recent months and I’d say in the last year and a half, two years, the military relationship has been very close, the intelligence relationship has been very close.

“Iran is not only a threat to Israel. This is a country that says it will wipe Israel off the map. But Iran poses a threat to the free world, to Europe, to the United States.

“So I believe the president when he says they are working closely with Israel. We’ve seen more sharing between the United States and Israel on the issue of Iran than we’ve seen in many years.”

The head of the Iranian parliament’s research institute recently called for a preemptive missile strike on Israel before the end of the year to forestall an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Asked if that threat concerns him, Foxman responds: “I think any threat from a country that is irrational and has the ability to arm as they have, which has not changed its tone, its rhetoric, I think we need to take seriously.

“I think too frequently democracies and the West ignore the rhetoric of dictatorships. I think we must take their word seriously.”

In a Newsmax interview two years ago, Foxman gave Obama an “F” grade for his dealing with the Israeli-Arab conflict and Iran. Asked if he still gives Obama a failing grade, Fox says: “No, I think he has improved. He has learned from some of the mistakes.

“I think the speech he gave at the United Nations puts him back in my mind to a B. He still hasn’t achieved [an A] but he has a better understanding of what is possible and what is not possible.”

In that speech in September, Obama urged a resumption of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, stressed support for an independent Palestinian state, and spoke against any United Nations bid to declare Palestine a state on its own.

Foxman says that after the address, “I called one of the White House officials and I said this is a wonderful speech. Had the president given that speech in Cairo three year we may have had a two-state solution.

“But there is an understanding. I think the fact that the United States is now supplying Israel with bunker-busters, that aid is being given in terms of defense missiles, I think shows an understanding that they were wrong.

Foxman addressed other issues in his Newsmax interview:

The Arab Spring: “It’s interesting that there was a meeting between the Jewish community and King Abdullah of Jordan, and one of the things he was concerned about was the speed with which the United States was cozying up to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. It is a dilemma, but I don’t think we should rush to legitimize them, to open up relations.”

The Arab uprising “changes the neighborhood,” Foxman says. “The neighborhood was never good. Now it’s a little worse.

“There was never a warm peace but at least there was a peace. Now it is not clear. The Muslim brotherhood leadership has spoken out of three sides of their mouth, saying they will abide by the [Israeli-Egyptian peace] treaty, others saying they will not.

“We’re seeing the gas lines supplying gas to Israel and Jordan have now been blown up 12 times. Until the Egyptians, the Muslim Brotherhood, the military decide to protect Sinai against al-Qaida, against terrorism, then I’m not sure that peace will last.”

Turkey and Israel: “Turkey’s relationship with Israel has gone from the example of a Muslim country being able to relate to both sides to one where I believe [Prime Minister Recep] Erdogan is playing a role to become a leader of the Muslim world.

“That has already undermined the Turkish-Israeli relationship. It may undermine the NATO relationship. If Turkey continues to build its relationshipwith Iran, how can the United States share its codes, its secrets with a NATO ally when there is a possibility it may be handed over to our enemies?”

Anti-Semitism in the United States: After the 2008 financial crisis the ADL noted an increase in crimes against Jews. Are anti-Semitic incidents on the rise, Foxman was asked.

“They are. When you measure hate crimes in this country, when it comes to religion, Jews and Jewish institutions are still the number one targets. For every time there is an Islamophobic attack there are 10 attacks on Jewish institutions.

“Unfortunately anti-Semitism still exists. We’re not immune.It’s better here than anywhere else in the world, but it still needs antidotes — education, education, education.”

Mark Caserta: Revealing military plan for Israel is telling – The Herald Dispatch.

February 08, 2012 @ 10:10 PM

The Herald-Dispatch

Christie: ‘I Admire Israel for the Enemies it Has Made’ – Yahoo! News.

ChrisChristieOutspoken New Jersey Governor Chris Christie addressed an American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) audience in New York recently and shared his view of what America’s role in the world should be, stressing the importance of the U.S. standing by its friends and taking action against its adversaries.

“America should stand by its friends and its democratic allies, even, and sometimes especially, when it’s unpopular to do so,” Christie said. “And you know I know, that it may not be fashionable in some of the chancelleries, the foreign ministries, and salons around the world to talk about why America stands with Israel – but that’s no excuse not to be saying, and saying it loudly.”

Christie continued:

“I read a quote from President Franklin Roosevelt which I thought made this point much better than I ever could.  He says, ‘Please judge me by the enemies I have made.’ In that same spirit, I would like to say to all of you tonight: I admire Israel for the enemies it has made.”

The Weekly Standard adds that the New Jersey governor went on to explain that Israel’s enemies are America’s enemies, and that the two countries share important values. “We both believe in self-government, we both believe in democracy, and unalienable rights,” Christie said.

“From what I understand, the Knesset and Israel’s free, vibrant news media make Trenton seems like a cordial and sleepy atmosphere.  You’ll find that hard to believe, if I say so myself.”

U.S. and Israel Split Over How to Deter Iran – NYTimes.com.

By MARK LANDLER and DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON — Amid mounting tensions over whether Israel will carry out a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program, the United States and Israel remain at odds over a fundamental question: whether Iran’s crucial nuclear facilities are about to become impregnable.

Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, coined the phrase “zone of immunity” to define the circumstances under which Israel would judge it could no longer hold off from an attack because Iran’s effort to produce a bomb would be invulnerable to any strike. But judging when that moment will arrive has set off an intense debate with the Obama administration, whose officials counter that there are other ways to make Iran vulnerable.

Senior Israeli officials, including the foreign minister and leader of the Mossad, have traveled to Washington in recent weeks to make the case that this point is fast approaching. American officials have made reciprocal visits to Jerusalem, arguing that Israel and the West have more time and should allow sanctions and covert actions to deter Iran’s plans.

The Americans have also used the discussions to test their belief, based on a series of public statements by Israeli officials, that an Israeli strike against Iran could come as early as spring, according to an official familiar with the discussions.

President Obama tried to defuse arguments for military action in a telephone call last month with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, the substance of which was confirmed by an Obama administration official who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to describe the conversation. While the two men have had an often contentious relationship over Middle East diplomacy, American officials emerged from that exchange persuaded that Mr. Netanyahu was willing to give economic sanctions and other steps time to work.

The difference of opinion over Iran’s nuclear “immunity” is critical because it plays into not just the timing — or bluffing — about a possible military strike, but the calculations about how deeply and quickly sanctions against Iran must bite. If the Israeli argument is right, the question of how fast the Iranians can assemble a weapon becomes less important than whether there is any way to stop them.

“ ‘Zone of immunity’ is an ill-defined term,” said a senior Obama administration official, expressing frustration that the Israelis are looking at the problem too narrowly, given the many kinds of pressure being placed on Tehran and the increasing evidence that far tougher sanctions are having an effect.

The Israelis have zeroed in on Iran’s plan to put much of its uranium enrichment near Qum in an underground facility beneath so many layers of granite that even the Pentagon acknowledges it would be out of the reach of its best bunker-busting bombs. Once enrichment activities are under way at Qum, the Israelis argue, Iran could throw out United Nations inspectors and produce bomb-grade fuel without fear the facility would be destroyed.

At its core, the official said, the argument the Israelis make is that once the Iranians get an “impregnable breakout capability” — that is, a place that is protected from a military strike — “it makes no difference whether it will take Iran six months or a year or five years” to fabricate a nuclear weapon, he said.

The Americans have a very different view, according to a second senior official who has discussed the concept with Israelis. He said “there are many other options” to slow Iran’s march to a completed weapon, like shutting off Iran’s oil revenues, taking out facilities that supply centrifuge parts or singling out installations where the Iranians would turn the fuel into a weapon.

Administration officials cite this more complex picture in pressing the Israelis to give the latest sanctions a chance to inflict enough pain on the Iranian leadership to force it back to the negotiating table, or to make the decision that the nuclear program is not worth the cost.

Iran’s currency has plunged, they note; its oil is piling up in storage tanks because it cannot find buyers, and there is growing evidence of fissures among the country’s leadership.

After a period of doubt about Israel’s intentions at the end of last year, administration officials said the two sides were now communicating better. Mr. Obama, they said, reflected that when he said in an interview on Sunday with NBC News, “I don’t think that Israel has made a decision on what they need to do.”

This is not the first time that the Israelis have invented a phrase that suggests a hard deadline before an attack. At the end of the Bush administration, they said they could not allow Iran to go past “the point of no return.” That phrase was also ill-defined, but seemed to suggest that once Iran had the know-how and the basic materials to make a bomb, it would be inevitable.

While nuclear experts believe Iran now has enough uranium to fuel four or more weapons, it would have to enrich it to bomb-grade levels, which would take months. Beyond that, Iran would have to produce a warhead that could fit atop an Iranian missile — a process that could take one to three years, most experts say.

Still, Mr. Barak’s theory of “immunity” has gained a lot of attention in recent weeks, complicating a debate charged with bellicose language — in Israel and Iran and among Republicans on the presidential campaign trail, where Mitt Romney and other candidates have pledged Israel full support in any military confrontation with Iran.

Disputes between the United States and Israel are inevitable, according to experts, given the radically different stakes of a nuclear Iran for a distant superpower and for a neighbor whose very existence the leaders in Tehran have pledged to eradicate.

“No end of consultations can remove that asymmetry,” said Martin S. Indyk, a former ambassador to Israel and director of the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution.

Next month, Mr. Netanyahu is scheduled to visit Washington to address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful pro-Israeli lobbying group, to whom he and other Israeli leaders have regularly spoken about Iran’s “existential threat.” The White House has not yet announced whether Mr. Netanyahu will meet with Mr. Obama, though officials say it is likely.

Officials said that for all the friction between the United States and Israel over issues like Jewish settlements in the West Bank, it had not spilled over into the dialogue over Iran, in part because Mr. Obama has ordered it “walled off” from politics.

Administration officials also noted a distinction in the tone of Mr. Barak and Mr. Netanyahu, who does not publicly favor the phrase “zone of immunity.” This week, an American official noted, Mr. Netanyahu declared that on the topic of Iran, officials should just “shut up.”

“I think that’s good advice,” the American official said.

Harsher IAEA report on Iran nuclear program expected next month – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Upcoming follow-up report apparently includes new details about efforts by Tehran to develop nuclear warheads for ground-to-ground missiles.

By Amos Harel

An upcoming report to be issued next month by the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran’s nuclear program is expected to be harsher than the last one, which the IAEA released in November. That document provided the main basis for stiffer international sanctions against the Islamic republic, including the complete oil embargo by the European Union that is to be imposed as of July.

Additional revelations by the IAEA could be the basis for even harsher international sanctions against Iran.

	Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaking at a ceremony in Iran’s nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz in 2008.
	Photo by: AP

The agency’s board of governors is scheduled to convene on March 5 in Vienna, the same day on which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to give a speech in Washington at a meeting of the annual policy conference of the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. While in the United States, Netanyahu is expected to meet with President Barack Obama for talks that will to a large extent be devoted to the international response to the threat from Iran.

The upcoming follow-up report from the IAEA will apparently include new details about the effort by Tehran to develop a nuclear warhead for a ground-to-ground missile. Last week an IAEA delegation visited Tehran for another round of talks with Iranian authorities. Western diplomats told news agency reporters in Vienna, where the organization is based, that the Iranian visit was a total failure.

The diplomats told the Reuters news agency that the delegation again asked the Iranians to give inspectors access to visit the military facility at Parchin, southeast of Tehran, but the Iranians refrained from responding to the request. Parchin is thought to be a main site of the weapons program. According to the same sources, after two days in which there appeared to be some progress in the talks, the Iranians began deliberately stalling – under the guise of changing the rules for the discussions – and he visit accomplished nothing.

An IAEA delegation will return to Tehran for another round of discussions on February 21, and IAEA chairman Yukiya Amano said in an official statement that the agency is “committed to intensifying dialogue” with Iran over its nuclear program. At the beginning of the week, President Obama signed an order stiffening American sanctions on the Iranian central bank, in another significant step against Iran. This step came about two weeks after the Europeans announced their oil embargo.

It appears that at least some of the comments about the Iranian issue made Israeli leaders in recent weeks are timed for the run-up to the IAEA board of governors meeting.

Russia says Israel’s increased speculation of a nuclear Iran can be ‘catastrophic’.

Thursday, 09 February 2012

An expert on Israeli intelligence, Ronen Bergman, wrote in the New York Times last month that an Israeli attack could come this year. (Illustration by Amarjit Sidhu)

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Thousands of Marines storm U.S. beaches as Operation Bold Alligator simulates international invasion | Mail Online.

• 20,000 troops from eight countries take part in massive amphibious landing exercise in North Carolina and Virginia
• Exercise sees fictional country of Amber invaded by army from neighbouring Garnet
• Week-long operation will also see air raids on enemy ‘forts’ and counter-insurgency tactics

By Wil Longbottom

Thousands of Marines stormed the beaches of Virginia and North Carolina last night in the largest amphibious training exercise for a decade.

Troops from the U.S., UK, Canada, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Australia took part in the massive military operation near Camp Lejeune, North Carolina and Virginia Beach.

The night exercise, known as Bold Alligator, pitched Marines from international forces in a fictional, friendly country called Amberland whose neighbour, Amber, had been invaded by Garnet.

Storm: Marines help to move an artillery piece after landing on a beach near Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, during the Bold Alligator exercise

Operation: Amphibious assault vehicles storm the shore after driving off the USS Oak Hill during the war games exercise

Cooperation: French vehicles and troops land from a LCAT transport catamaran as the operation gets underway

Fast response: A Navy LCAC hovercraft lands on the beach in Camp Lejeune as the simulated amphibious assault swings into action

The Garnet army was rapidly advancing northward along the coast to Wilmington, North Carolina, seizing its port and airport and the forces have been asked to halt the advance.

Nearly 30 ships and 20,000 service personnel have been taking part in the exercise as military leaders attempt to provide a more realistic scenario for how amphibious landings could be conducted in future.

A new approach to the landings involves more reliance on allies and friendly countries, including making decisions on whether to stage ships in port or out to sea because of the potential disruption to a host nation’s economy.

Military: A Sikorsky Super Stallion Iron Horse helicopter takes off from the USS Wasp as eight countries took part in the largest amphibious assault for a decade

New war: French troops prepare to storm a ‘terrorist encampment’ after the fictional country of Amber was invaded by Garnet. Right, U.S. Marines wait to board a helicopter which will bring them into the action

Kitted out: U.S. Marines board two helicopters as the initial landing stage of a week of war games exercises began yesterday

Mission: Another vehicle carrying troops rolls off the hovercraft

Naval assault: The USS Wasp discharges LCAC hovercraft as it stages operations off the coast of North Carolina

Duties: Two soldiers clean weapons on their AAVP7 assault vehicle on board the USS Wasp

The week’s exercises have been in the planning stages for several years, and they take place days before President Barack Obama will submit his defence budget proposal to Congress.

Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Jonathan Greenert, said: ‘We didn’t put Bold Alligator together to send a message to Congress, but there may be, you know, there’s always second-order effects.’

Marines travelling on hovercraft from the USS New York landed at Fort Story – a military base along Virginia Beach.

After unloading equipment, they moved 2.5 miles to raid a mock terrorist training camp as gunfire, pyrotechnics and noise filled the night air.

Scale: Troops carriers drive along the beach after making landfall as 20,000 service personnel, including Marines, sailors and air staff, take part in the operation

Forward look: Seaman Opoku calls out sightings on board the USS Wasp in the Atlantic Ocean

Might: A crew members makes checks as a helicopter takes off carrying Marines

Exercise: A U.S. Navy landing craft lands in the dock of French ship Mistral to load equipment

Getting wet: Amphibious vehicles, with a soldier manning the guns, drive out of the surf with other warships in the background

Drilled: An LCAC hovercraft goes back for another load of troops and equipment after making shore

Once clear, ‘killed’ enemy combatants were searched for intelligence, civilians were evacuated and a booby-trapped weapons cache was blown up before the Marines returned to their ship.

Marines have been fighting wars in landlocked countries like Iraq and Afghanistan for years, and many have never even set foot on a Navy ship.

This is of particular concern as the military shifts its strategic focus towards coastal regions, including Iran, North Korea and China, which are drawing increasing attention from the U.S.

As part of the U.S. Defense Department’s budget proposal, some ships will be retired earlier than expected while the purchase of others is being delayed.

Intelligence: Trucks prepare to drive off the Navy LCAC after it made landfall. The week of exercises will also see Marines storm a fort from the air

Time to move? A French Navy sailor watches as a U.S. hovercraft docks in the hold

Night fighting: An amphibious assault vehicle drives ashore as the sun sets in North Carolina

Discipline: A U.S. sailor monitors his radar equipment and, right, French soldiers cover each other as they carry out a patrol on land

Equipment: Weapons, helmets and binoculars sit on the deck as Marines prepare to disembark

Plans: A Netherlands Lieutenant Commander explains details of the mission to sailors

Amphibious assaults were common during World War Two, most notably when Allied troops staged the Normandy landings in German-occupied France in 1944, as well as numerous landings on islands in the Pacific. Since then, such landings have become far more rare.

The U.S. Navy is concerned about developing an amphibious mindset and a memo last year urged every sailor in the Atlantic Fleet to read doctrine on amphibious operations as well as three books on the 1982 conflict between the UK and Argentina over the Falkland Islands.

Later on this week, the international forces will stage an aerial assault and insertion of Marine launched from sea on Fort Pickett, Virginia.