Defense Secretary Mattis tells military leaders to prepare for war.

Courtesy of Politico:  

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Monday urged military leaders "to be ready" with military options for President Donald Trump to deal with North Korea should diplomacy fail -- after Trump reprimanded his top brass last week for not providing him contingency plans quickly enough. 

"Right now it is a diplomatically led, economic sanctions-buttressed effort to try to turn North Korea off this path,” Mattis said following a speech at the annual convention of the Association of the United States Army in Washington. “Now, what does the future hold? Neither you nor I can say, so there’s one thing the U.S. Army can do, and that is we have got to be ready to ensure that we have military options that our president can employ if needed.”

On Thursday, Trump told Mattis and his top generals in a White House meeting that he wanted military options at a “much faster pace.” The president subsequently suggested to reporters that “maybe it’s the calm before the storm," sparking widespread speculation that the cryptic reference was to Korea war plans. 

Before Mattis' remarks Monday, Trump tweeted, “Our country has been unsuccessfully dealing with North Korea for 25 years, giving billions of dollars & getting nothing. Policy didn't work!”

I am at the point right now where I am just assuming that Trump is going to attack North Korea.

In some ways I think he feels he has no other choice.

He understands NOTHING about diplomacy, and does not care about the long term affects of anything that he does.

What's more he desperately needs to shut down this Russia investigation, and since he cannot fire Robert Mueller without making things worse, he has to do something huge to pull attention away from it and insulate himself from further investigations.

Just ask yourself, which Republicans are going to support trying to remove the president while he is in the middle of conducting a brand new war?

US general accuses Russia of providing weapons to the Taliban which were used against American backed forces.

Courtesy of Yahoo News:  

The United States must confront Russia for providing weapons to the Taliban for use against American-backed forces in Afghanistan, top U.S. military officials said Monday. 

At a news conference with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis at his side, Gen. John Nicholson, the American commander in Afghanistan, wouldn't provide specifics about Russia's role in Afghanistan. But said he would "not refute" that Moscow's involvement includes giving weapons to the Taliban. 

Earlier Monday, a senior U.S. military official told reporters in Kabul that Russia was giving machine guns and other medium-weight weapons. The Taliban are using the weapons in the southern provinces of Helmand, Kandahar and Uruzgan, according to the official, who briefed journalists on intelligence information on condition of anonymity.

Well this is certainly going to put a strain on the Putin/Trump bromance.

Now not only are there various investigations into the Russian hacking of our election, but there are also these allegations that the Russians are providing weapons to our enemies.

Yep, Trump is never going to get his thirty pieces of silver from Putin if this keeps up.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is resigning today. Sources say that he is being forced out. Update!

Courtesy of Business Insider: 

A senior administration official subsequently confirmed to Business Insider that Hagel would resign. They said Hagel would announce his decision alongside the president at 11:00 a.m. 

 "A successor will be named in short order, but Secretary Hagel will remain as Defense Secretary until his replacement is confirmed by the United States Senate," the official said. 

The official characterized Hagel's decision to step down as normal administration turnover in the wake of the midterm elections earlier this month. 

That is the official response to why Hagel is leaving, however the unofficial response is much different:   

Senior defense officials confirmed to NBC News Monday that Hagel was forced to resign. 

The officials say the White House has lost confidence in Hagel to carry out his role at the Pentagon. According to one senior official, “He wasn’t up to the job.” 

Another senior administration official said that Hagel has been discussing a departure from the White House "for several weeks."

As we know President Obama is incredibly loyal to his people, so for Hagel to be "forced out" is a real recognition of his lack of confidence in the Defense Secretary's abilities.

Apparently there will be a press conference in about an hour so there will be more to add to this post then.

So I guess Monday's starting off with a bang.

Update: I just watched the Hagel press conference, and my take away is that he might have been forced from his job for incompetence, but his friendship with the President and Vice President Joe Biden seems quite genuine and deeply affectionate. 

At times it almost looked like the President and Chuck Hagel were both there against their will, and Joe Biden simply looked pissed off.

I think in the weeks ahead we will learn more about what instigated this resignation, but I am pretty confident that it was not due to any friction between Hagel and the President.