US Marine and Fortune 500 CEO coach Andrew Wittman explains how he used intermittent fasting to get a lot more toned and finally see his abs. Following is a transcript of the video.

Back in — when I was deployed, I want to say 2010, 2011, coming up to where it was my 45th birthday, I wanted to see my abs. I'm reading all the studies on how you get your body to do that. There was a lot of research on intermittent fasting, and — course, they did the studies on soldiers. Thank you, US Army. 

So they found out your body really doesn't go into starvation mode. You could go 3 weeks on 800 calories and you don't lose any muscle mass as long as you're working out. Well, I could do that. So I started the fasting, the intermittent fasting, consuming my calories between 4 o'clock in the afternoon, 8 o'clock at night, by 8 o'clock at night, I'm done. I don't eat again until 4 o'clock the next day at the earliest. 

And during that time I will drink lots of water. I'll drink black coffee or unsweet tea, and that's pretty much it. I started in Kosovo — we deployed, I can tell you the dates. It was my wife's birthday, February 3. I got back on May the first, I think. I followed this routine for right about 3 months, 12 weeks, 90 days, and I saw my abs... Booyah. 

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As many as three Afghan civilians were killed on Monday when American troops opened fire after their vehicle struck a roadside bomb, an official in Nangarhar province said.

A man and his two sons were killed at their home in Ghani Khel, a district in the south of Nangarhar, on the border with Pakistan, said Attaullah Khogyani, a spokesman for the provincial governor.

"After the bomb blast hit them, the American forces then started shooting and killed one man and two children nearby," he said.

The U.S. military command in Kabul said a convoy of American and Afghan troops was struck by a roadside bomb and attacked by gunmen.

"The convoy returned fire in self-defence and there were no U.S. casualties," the command said in a statement.

There had been no official report of civilian casualties filed, but the military was investigating the incident, the U.S. military said in a statement.

"We take civilian casualties very seriously and all allegations are thoroughly investigated," it said.

Civilian casualties have run at near record highs as fighting spreads to more areas of Afghanistan, according to the United Nations.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani generally has been less vocal than his predecessor, Hamid Karzai, in publicly criticising the U.S. military when troops are involved in incidents where civilians are killed.

On Saturday, three American soldiers were killed and one wounded when an Afghan soldier opened fire on them in Nangarhar, where elite U.S. troops have been helping Afghan forces battle Islamic State militants.

Also over the weekend, an American air strike in southern Afghanistan killed at least three Afghanpolicemen and wounded several during a joint operation by Afghan and U.S. special forces.

U.S. and Afghan troops have been battling militants in Nangarhar province for months.

Islamic State, or Daesh as it is known in Afghanistan, has established a stronghold in the region, which borders Pakistan. U.S. military officials estimate there are about 600 to 800 Islamic State fighters in Afghanistan, mostly in Nangarhar, but also in the neighboring province of Kunar.

The increase in involvement by U.S troops and warplanes comes as U.S. President Donald Trump's administration weighs whether to deploy more troops in the war-torn country.

Reuters reported in late April that the U.S. administration was carrying out a review of Afghanistan and there were conversations over whether to send between 3,000 and 5,000 U.S. and coalition troops to Afghanistan.

Deliberations include giving more authority to forces on the ground and taking more aggressive action against Taliban fighters. This could allow U.S. advisers to work with Afghan troops below the corps level, potentially putting them closer to fighting, a U.S. official said.

SEE ALSO: US special forces have joined the battle as Philippines takes losses in city besieged by Islamist rebels

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NOW WATCH: Here's why the American flag is reversed on military uniforms

On Jun. 9, 2017, two B-2s deployed to RAF Fairford, UK.

Interestingly, the two aircraft, 82-1068 Spirit Of New York (using radio callsign “Mytee 21”) and 88-0329 Spirit Of Missouri (“Mytee 22), launched from their homebase at Whiteman AFB, Missouri, visited a bombing range in the UK before recovering into RAF Fairford.

The following video, filmed by our friend Ben Ramsay, shows the two stealth bombers approaching runway 27 at Fairford, where the Spirits joined the three B-52 Stratofortress and three B-1 Lancer bombers already deployed there to take part in exercise BALTOPS.

Although the U.S. Air Force deploys its bombers to RAF Fairford regularly, it’s quite rare to have the three types on the British base at the same time.

Indeed B-2s don’t move from Whiteman AFB, in Missouri, too often: they are able to hit their target with very long round-trip missions from their homebase in CONUS (Continental U.S.), as happened during recent training missions, extended nuclear deterrence sorties in the Korean Peninsula, as well as during real conflicts, such as the Libya Air War in 2011, Allied Force in Serbia in 1999 or the more recent air strike on ISIS in Libya. A capability that is common to both the B-52s and the B-1s that, unlike the stealth bombers, are more frequently deployed abroad.

However, the deployment of the “bomber trio” has already taken place last year at Andersen Air Force Base when the three different platforms simultaneously launched from Guam for their first integrated bomber operation in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. Is the current deployment to the UK a sign that the trio-bomber force is becoming a routine in the way the strategic assets are operated by USAF?

SEE ALSO: Watch bombs being dropped on ISIS in Mosul from the cockpit of a B-52

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NOW WATCH: Former Navy SEAL commanders explain why they still wake up at 4:30 a.m. — and why you should, too

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is on the brink of losing the two main centers of his 'caliphate' but even though he is on the run, it may take years to capture or kill him, officials and experts said.

Islamic State fighters are close to defeat in the twin capitals of the group's territory, Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, and officials say Baghdadi is steering clear of both, hiding in thousands of square miles of desert between the two.

"In the end, he will either be killed or captured, he will not be able to remain underground forever," said Lahur Talabany, the head of counter-terrorism at the Kurdistan Regional Government, the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq. "But this is a few years away still," he told Reuters.

One of Baghdadi's main concerns is to ensure those around him do not betray him for the $25 million reward offered by the United States to bring him "to justice", said Hisham al-Hashimi, who advises Middle East governments on Islamic State affairs.

"With no land to rule openly, he can no longer claim the title caliph," Hashimi said. "He is a man on the run and the number of his supporters is shrinking as they lose territory."

Iraqi forces have retaken much of Mosul, the northern Iraqi city the hardline group seized in June 2014 and from which Baghdadi declared himself "caliph" or leader of all Muslims shortly afterwards. Raqqa, his capital in Syria, is nearly surrounded by a coalition of Syrian Kurdish and Arab groups.

The last public video footage of him shows him dressed in black clerical robes declaring his caliphate from the pulpit of Mosul's medieval Grand al-Nuri mosque back in 2014.

Born Ibrahim al-Samarrai, Baghdadi is a 46-year-old Iraqi who broke away from al-Qaeda in 2013, two years after the capture and killing of the group's leader Osama bin Laden.

He grew up in a religious family, studied Islamic Theology in Baghdad and joined the Salaafi jihadist insurgency in 2003, the year of the US-led invasion of Iraq. He was caught by the Americans who released him about a year later as they considered him then as a civilian rather than a military target.

Bounty

He is shy and reserved, Hashimi said, and has recently stuck to the sparsely populated Iraq-Syria border where drones and strangers are easy to spot.

The U.S. Department of State's Counter-Terrorism Rewards Program had put the same $25 million bounty on Bin Laden and Iraqi former president Saddam Hussein and the reward is still available for Bin Laden's successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Neither Saddam nor Bin Laden were voluntarily betrayed, but the bounties complicated their movements and communications.

"The reward creates worry and tension, it restricts his movements and limit the number of his guards," said Fadhel Abu Ragheef, a Baghdad-based expert on extremist groups. "He doesn't stay more than 72 hours in any one place."

Baghdadi "has become nervous and very careful in his movements", said Talabany, whose services are directly involved in countering Islamic State plots. "His circle of trust has become even smaller."

His last recorded speech was issued in early November, two weeks after the start of the Mosul battle, when he urged his followers to fight the "unbelievers" and "make their blood flow as rivers".

U.S. and Iraqi officials believe he has left operational commanders behind with diehard followers to fight the battles of Mosul and Raqqa, to focus on his own survival.

It is not possible to confirm his whereabouts.

Baghdadi does not use phones and has a handful number of approved couriers to communicate with his two main aides, Iyad al-Obaidi, his defense minister, and Ayad al-Jumaili, in charge of security. There was no confirmation of an April 1 Iraqi state TV report that Jumaili had been killed.

Baghdadi moves in ordinary cars, or the kind of pick-up trucks used by farmers, between hideouts on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian border, with just a driver and two bodyguards, said Hashimi.

The region is well known to his men as the hotbed of the Sunni insurgency against U.S. forces that invaded Iraq and later the Shi'ite-led governments that took over the country.

At the height of its power two years ago, Islamic State ruled over millions of people in territory running from northern Syria through towns and villages along the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys to the outskirts of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

It persecuted non-Sunnis and even Sunnis who did not agree with its extreme version of Islamic law, with public executions and whippings for violating strict controls on appearance, behavior and movement.

But the group has been retreating since in the face of a multitude of local, regional and international forces, driven into action by the scores of deadly attacks around the world that it has claimed or inspired.

A few hundred thousand people now live in the areas under the group's control, in and around Raqqa and Deir al-Zor, in Syria's east, and in a few pockets south and west of Mosul. Hashimi said Islamic State was moving some fighters out of Raqqa before it was encircled to regroup in Deir al-Zor.

Mosul, with pre-war population of 2 million, was at least four times the size of any other the group has held. Up to 200,000 people are still trapped in the Old City, Islamic State's besieged enclave in Mosul, lacking supplies and being used as human shields to obstruct the progress of Iraqi forces by a U.S-led international coalition.

The Syrian Democratic Forces, made of Kurdish and Arab groups supported by the U.S.-led coalition, began to attack Raqqa last week, after a months-long campaign to cut it off.

The militants are also fighting Russian and Iranian-backed forces in Syria loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, and mainly Sunni Muslim Syrian rebels backed by Turkey.

The last official report about Baghdadi was from the Iraqi military on Feb. 13. Iraqi F-16s carried out a strike on a house where he was thought to be meeting other commanders, in western Iraq, near the Syrian border, it said.

Overall, Islamic State has 8,000 fighters left, of which 2,000 are foreigners from other Arab states, Europe, Russia and central Asia, said Abu Ragheef.

"A small number compared to the tens of thousands arrayed against them in both countries, but a force to be reckoned with, made up of die-hards with nothing to lose, hiding in the middle of civilians and making extensive use of booby traps, mines and explosives," he said.

The U.S. government has a joint task force to track down Baghdadi which includes special operations forces, the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies as well as spy satellites of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency.

It will take more than that to erase his influence, Talabany said. "He is still considered the leader of ISIL and many continue to fight for him; that hasn't changed drastically," he said, using one of Islamic State's acronyms.

Even if killed or captured, he added, "his legacy and that of ISIL will endure unless radical extremism is tackled."

SEE ALSO: The US is edging ever closer to fighting ISIS, Assad, and his backers — all at the same time

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NOW WATCH: Former Navy SEAL commanders explain why they still wake up at 4:30 a.m. — and why you should, too

For the first ever, all three of the US Air Force Global Strike Command bombers have gathered at a single airfield in Fairford, United Kingdom, for BALTOPS— a large scale NATO exercise meant to demonstrate capability and deter Russian aggression.

On the left, the B-1B is the Air Force's only nonnuclear capable bomber. In the center is the B-2 Spirit bomber, and on the right, the B-52, which has been in constant service for over five decades.

The bombers will carry out training missions with sea and land and additional air assets across eastern Europe.

Nuclear-capable and heavy bombers represent the most visible leg of the US's nuclear triad, and are often deployed to a region to deter aggression and promote stability. Previously, all three bombers were pictured together in Guam.

SEE ALSO: Watch 2 US B-2 stealth bombers arrive in the UK

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NOW WATCH: There’s a 'Boneyard' in Arizona where most US military planes go to die

• President Barack Obama's options in Syria were limited by his efforts to negotiate the Iran nuclear deal.
• US President Donald Trump doesn't have those limitations and is free to strike Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime and Iranian-backed groups.
• Trump has called Iran's bluff but risks Iranian-backed militias striking US forces.

As US President Donald Trump enjoyed chocolate cake with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago in April, he ordered the military to do something his predecessor hadn't dared: directly strike Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

Trump, a political neophyte then inside his first 100 days in office, attacked an ally of Russia and Iran after intelligence services concluded that Assad's forces had used chemical weapons on Syrian civilians, many of them children.

But Syria never fired back. Neither did Russia. And so far, Iran hasn't either. The salvo of 59 cruise missiles that took out a handful of Assad's warplanes went virtually unpunished.

The incident typifies the difference in Trump's and President Barack Obama's Syria policy, in which Trump seems to have successfully called Iran's bluff.

Obama was pressed by a similar situation in 2013, after evidence surfaced that Assad violated Obama's "red line" by using chemical weapons. Instead of following through on his threat to hit Assad in response, Obama agreed to let Russia step in and deal with the chemical-weapons stockpile.

Toward the end of Obama's term, it became clear why he had shied away from striking Assad: He was focused on the Iran nuclear deal.

"When the president announced his plans to attack [the Assad regime] and then pulled back, it was exactly the period in time when American negotiators were meeting with Iranian negotiators secretly in Oman to get the nuclear agreement," Wall Street Journal reporter Jay Solomon told MSNBC last year.

"US and Iranian officials have both told me that they were basically communicating that if the US starts hitting President Assad's forces, Iran's closest Arab ally ... these talks cannot conclude," Solomon continued.

But Trump has patently different ideas about Iran. He vocally opposed the Iran deal and campaigned on tearing it up. While Trump hasn't followed through, his administration has moved to put additional sanctions on Tehran, as the deal has freed up over $100 billion of Iran's funds.

And importantly, Trump has shown he'll hit Assad if needed and even hand over power to battlefield commanders to hit Iranian-backed forces if they threaten US troops.

Obama's refusal to enforce his red line or punish Assad militarily for a host of war crimes Assad has been accused of committing under his watch "was never about fear of World War III," said Jonathan Schanzer, an expert on the Middle East from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

"The fear for Obama was upsetting the nuclear deal. That was what they were protecting. It wasn't about sparking some wider confrontation," said Schanzer, alluding to Russia's 2015 entrance into the conflict on Assad's behalf.

So while Obama walked on eggshells with Iran to preserve his deal, apparently believing Iran would exit if he acted against it, Trump has had the benefit of entering office post-deal.

Every review of Iran's nuclear facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency since Trump took office has shown that Iran is complying with the deal's terms. To outside observers, Iran appears in line with the letter of the deal, even after the US's April 7 strike on Assad's airfield.

But the tension between the US and Iran hasn't resolved— it has shifted. Nick Heras, an expert on Syria with the Center for a New American Security, told Business Insider that Iran's attention had settled on eastern Syria, where a US-led coalition is getting ready to dislodge ISIS.

"In eastern Syria, Iran is trying to box the US out," Heras said. "The Iranians don't want the US to open up shop in eastern Syria. Iranians have sent columns of militias to try to force out the US in eastern Syria. The Iranians assess that there's a threat that the Trump administration would build up a presence to try to stabilize eastern Syria."

Iran has not taken kindly to the idea of increased US influence or presence in Syria. Since May, the US-led coalition has responded three times to what it perceived as attempts by pro-Assad, Iranian-backed forces to attack it. And each time, US air power has devastated Iran's proxies.

"I believe that Trump's instincts on the Middle East are not bad," Schanzer said. "He understands that he needs to project strength to these actors, and he is. That's giving us more leverage with actors that in the past Obama was fearful of challenging, and that's positive."

But while the US is no longer being coerced into walking an Iranian-approved path in Syria, clashes with Iran could put the about 500 US troops in Syria at risk, as the US closes in on ISIS's final strongholds and the fight for the future of Syria shapes up.

SEE ALSO: The US is edging ever closer to fighting ISIS, Assad, and his backers — all at the same time

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NOW WATCH: Watch the US Marine Corps' F-35 run and gun for the first time

In the face of a resurgent Russian and Chinese navy modernization, the US Navy is scrambling to plus up from 272 ships to a fleet of 355 and meet pressing demands all around the globe. 

But the US has already strained its industrial base for building ships, and additional ships just can't be built fast enough to meet the growing gaps.

Instead, naval experts at the American Enterprise Institute have put together a plan to reorganize and modernize the US Navy to meet future challenges within 5 years, as Defense News first reported.

“We can’t just grow the Navy, that’s not the solution that’s going to meet all the demands we have,” said John Miller, a retired vice admiral who led the development of the "improved Navy," or iNavy plan, in an interview with Defense News.

“We really don’t have the money to do that and we don’t have the industrial capacity to just build a bigger Navy in a very short amount of time," Miller said.

So without expanding the Navy by a single ship Miller and the AEI devised a plan that relies mainly on increasing forward basing, modernizing existing ships, and increasing each ship's lethality.

Miller and company would like to see more ships based in Europe, with submarines in Scotland and an amphibious readiness group with an attached Marine expeditionary unit in Sicily. The report also demands bringing all 22 existing Ticonderoga-class cruisers up to the Aegis Baseline 9 system, the best floating radar system in the world today.

Miller suggest taking ships usually used for logistics, like San Antonio-class landing platform/dock ships, and having them refitted with vertical launchers to fire cruise missiles.

Also crucial to the program would be fully implementing the Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air network, that allows sharing of targeting information, so a missile launched from one platform can be guided to a target by another.

Essentially, the US Navy as envisioned by the AEI would be better positioned to take on the Navy's most likely challengers. Increasing its presence in Europe would allow US Navy ships to quickly jaunt off to the Middle East, the Baltics, or even Africa. 

“The more forward-deployed we are the more ready we are and the more capable we are of responding to crisis,” Miller told Defense News. “We need to be more forward-deployed than we are today. You have to have the numbers of ships and aircraft and you have to have sufficient lethality and be properly networked.”

The plan put forth by the AEI responds to the fact US forces in Europe and the Mediterranean shrank after the Cold War, but with threats coming back to the surface in seas around the globe, today's Navy can still respond with strength.

SEE ALSO: North Korea is openly trolling Trump by responding to months-old tweets, threatening to nuke NYC

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NOW WATCH: This is the inside account of the secret battle US Marines have been fighting against ISIS

The US Army and Air Force just tested out a telling new capability by landing a C-17, pulling out a high mobility artillery rocket system (HIMARS), firing at a target, and flying away all within 20 minutes.

The tactic essentially turns the US's tried and tested HIMARS into a scoot and shoot weapons system with wings, and it's the perfect solution for the problems posed by the South China Sea. 

"This is a critical step in validating our role in the Asia-Pacific response force," 2nd Lt. Joe McNeil, a platoon leader involved in the exercise said in a statement. "It validates our ability to integrate into different units from the Army, Air Force and Marines, and to support any kind of mission with fires."

To China's potent missile forces, large US bases in the Pacific look like appetizing targets, so the US has been coming up with ways to fight smarter from smaller, spread out, and even improvised locations. The C-17 lends itself perfectly to this application, as it can land on dirt runways under difficult conditions. 

"If it wasn't for the safety verifications, we would have shot the first fire mission within two minutes of leaving the aircraft," said 1st Lt. Robert Sincero, the A Battery executive officer in the statement. 

Over at the Navy, military planners and private consultants are working on a concept called "distributed lethality," to give even the smallest US Navy ships potent missiles. Again this idea disperses the targets for the enemy, while adding bite to the Navy's fleet. 

Another aircraft that fits the bill for the South China Sea's vast, undeveloped battle space is the Marine Corps' F-35B, which can land vertically, take off over a short distance, and reload with the engines running to reduce turnaround time.

These qualities enable the F-35B to use improvised bases and strike the enemy from unpredictable locations. By fall, the F-35Bs will see their first-ever carrier deployment in the Pacific. 

SEE ALSO: The US Navy could be bigger, stronger, and more lethal in just 5 years

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NOW WATCH: This is the inside account of the secret battle US Marines have been fighting against ISIS

The US Navy's USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carriers may field the MQ-25A Stingray, the unmanned aerial tanker that will extend the range of US carrier aircraft and counter long-range threats to US ships like China's "carrier killer" missile, the US Naval Institute reports.

Citing multiple sources within the Navy, the Naval Institute reports that the two carriers will get upgrades to control the drone, and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson wants the Stingray on carrier decks by 2019.

Not only would the Stingray extend the range of carrier-based aircraft, it would lessen the burden on the heavily taxed F/A-18 Super Hornets, which currently fly refueling missions for the Navy. 

Though the report shows the Navy's top leadership obviously is behind the Stingray in concept and in principal, it hasn't even been built yet. 

The drone often pictured alongside articles about the Stingray isn't actually the MQ-25A Stingray, but another carrier-based drone, the X-47B.

A concept image shared by Lockheed Martin shows a very different aircraft with propellers.

A Navy spokesperson told Business Insider it was too early to comment on when or where the Stingray would eventually test and deploy. The Navy hasn't even put out a request for proposal on building the Stingray yet.

Rising anti-access/area-denial threats from Russia and China could possibly explain the Navy's rush for an as-of-yet non-existent platform. Additionally North Korea has made strides towards fielding anti-ship weapons that could threaten the Navy near its shores. 

SEE ALSO: The US military is developing new tactics to dominate the South China Sea

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NOW WATCH: A Marine veteran reveals 2 things he learned in the military that he still does today

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government on Tuesday issued a rare alert on the activities of a hacking group it dubbed "Hidden Cobra," saying the group was part of the North Korean government.

The joint alert from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation said that "cyber actors of the North Korean government" had targeted the media, aerospace and financial sectors, as well as critical infrastructure, in the United States and globally.

(Reporting by Dustin Volz in Washington; Writing by Jim Finkle; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

SEE ALSO: The US student medically evacuated from North Korea is in 'bad shape,' has been in a coma for a year

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NOW WATCH: Former Navy SEAL commanders explain why they still wake up at 4:30 a.m. — and why you should, too

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told senators Tuesday the Palestinian Authority intends to "cease the payments" to families of prisoners serving sentences for attacking Israelis.

The Palestinian Authority has long paid prisoners and their families, but the issue has become more prominent as Israel has pressed President Trump to demand Palestinians end the policy.

Tillerson, testifying in a hearing on Capitol Hill with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the State Department's budget, said the Palestinian Authority plans to end that practice.

"They have changed that policy, and their intent is to cease the payments to the families of those who have committed murder or violence against others," Tillerson said. "We have been very clear with them that this is simply not acceptable to us."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government pressed the Trump administration to cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority unless the payments stop.

Republicans in Congress have also exerted pressure.

SEE ALSO: The US student medically evacuated from North Korea is in 'bad shape,' has been in a coma for a year

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NOW WATCH: Animated map shows what the US would look like if all the Earth's ice melted

• North Korea will build a nuclear missile that can hit the US mainland within a short period — for that reason the US considers them the top threat to security.
• The US has no practical way to counter North Korea's nuclear development.
• The US will just have to live with the fact that North Korean nukes can range its major cities, just like South Korea and Japan already do.

Secretary of Defense James Mattis didn't mince words before the House Armed Services Committee on Monday night, saying North Korea — not Russia or terrorism — represented the top threat to the US in 2017.

“North Korea’s continued pursuit of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them has increased in pace and scope,” said Mattis. “The regime’s nuclear weapons program is a clear and present danger to all, and the regime’s provocative actions, manifestly illegal under international law, have not abated despite United Nations’ censure and sanctions.”

Mattis's testimony came just days after the head of the US's Missile Defense Agency, Vice Adm. James Syring, told the House Armed Services committee on that the US "must assume that North Korea can reach us with a ballistic missile," and that the missile defenses are not yet ready to meet that threat.

North Korea volunteered on Tuesday that its missiles could hit New York City.

While North Korea often exaggerates its weapons' capabilities, several experts have told Business Insider it could achieve an intercontinental ballistic missile within a few months to a year.

As Mattis said on Monday, UN sanctions and resolutions against North Korea's Kim regime have not satisfactorily curbed its nuclear weapons program. Furthermore, experts have told Business Insider that the US to stooping to the conditions for diplomatic talks as proposed by North Korea would amount to nuclear blackmail.

As Mattis noted previously, exercising the often-touted military option against North Korea would lead to a conflict that would be "tragic on an unbelievable scale."

So with a North Korean ICBM imminent, diplomatic options ineffective or compromising, and military confrontation an insane solution, what will happen when North Korea gets its wish for a thermonuclear bomb that can level Washington, D.C. or any other US city?

The short answer is nothing. Nothing will happen.

The US already lives with a nuclear-armed North Korea that can level Seoul, South Korea's capital and home to 10 million civilians. North Korea can already lay waste to the 28,000 US troops permanently stationed near the demilitarized zone.

Japan already lives with the knowledge that North Korea could most likely range Tokyo, home to 9 million, with a nuclear weapon.

Why should anything change when North Korea can reach Guam, Los Angeles, or New York? North Korea doesn't attack Seoul, Tokyo, Guam, or any other place — because if they did, the US would absolutely destroy them.

That's the same reason that Russia, despite deep differences on foreign policy and conflicts of interest with the US, never fired on the US, or any other country, even during the height of the Cold War. 

"We can deter them," retired Adm. Dennis Blair, the former head of US Pacific Command, said of North Korea at a National Committee for US-China Relations event. "They may be developing 10 to 15 nuclear weapons. We have 2,000. They can do a lot of damage to the US, but there won't be any North Korea left in the event of a nuclear exchange. That's not a good regime survival strategy, and even Kim Jong Un would understand that.”

Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea wrote the possession of nuclear weapons into their constitution as a guarantor of their security. 

But to use one of those nuclear weapons in anger would absolutely undermine that desire for security, and likely turn much of the Korean peninsula into a glowing nuclear wasteland. 

SEE ALSO: The US can survive a nuclear North Korea — but a first strike could start World War III

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NOW WATCH: Watch how the US would shoot down an incoming ICBM in its tracks

1. The Army is older than the country it serves.

Americans celebrate the birth of their nation as July 4, 1776, but the Army is actually the country's "big brother." That makes sense, considering the Continental Army of 1775 — led by future President George Washington — needed to start beating the British in the colonies so Thomas Jefferson could finally get some time to write.

Before the Army was established, colonists were organized into rag-tag militias with no real structure or unified chain of command. But in spring 1775, most wanted to attack the British near Boston but knew they needed more structure to confront the professional soldiers on the other side. That's where the official birth of the Army came in, on June 14, 1775, through a resolution from the Continental Congress.

The next day, George Washington was appointed as commander-in-chief of the new Army, and he took command of his troops in Boston on July 3, 1775, according to the Army History Division.

2. If the US Army were a city, it would be the 10th largest in the United States.

Just over 1 million soldiers are serving in the Army. About half of that number is on active duty and serving full time, while the rest make up the reserve components of the National Guard and Army Reserve. To put it in perspective, a city filled with soldiers would have more people in it than San Jose, California; Austin, Texas; Jacksonville, Florida; and San Francisco.

3. It is also the second-largest employer.

With 2.2 million people on the payroll, Walmart is America's largest employer. But the Army maintains the second spot with more than 1 million active-duty and reserve soldiers. While budget cuts brought the number of soldiers in uniform down substantially in 2015 to about 1,042,200, the Army still beats the next-largest employer of Yum Brands, which has 523,000 total employees.

4. Specialist is the most prevalent rank among soldiers — by far.

There's a reason many soldiers joke about the existence of an "E-4 Mafia." That's because if you want anything done in the Army, you'll probably need a specialist (or three) to get it done. Across active-duty and reserve ranks in 2015, there are 264,890 specialists, making up more than one-quarter of the US Army.

Though the Army used to have specialist ranks that had grades from Spec-4 to Spec-9, it eliminated that system in 1985, setting aside Specialist-4 as a junior-enlisted rank called just "Specialist" from then on. Unlike corporals, who are also E-4s, the specialist rank isn't considered a non-commissioned officer, which is probably why some are very good at earning their "sham shield."

5. The service burns through nearly 1 billion gallons of fuel every year.

Just like any other large organization that needs energy to sustain operations, the Army needs fuel. A lot of fuel. A 2011 Army fact sheet estimated the Army used more than 22 gallons every day, per soldier — much more than only one gallon required per soldier during World War II.

A 2008 Army report said the service purchased approximately 880 million gallons of fuel for mobility operations. The report is a little dated though, and the Army — along with the rest of the DoD — has been working hard to bring down its energy usage, citing a reliance on fossil fuels as a major national-security risk and logistical problem for troops in the field.

6. Among US Presidents with military service, most served in the Army.

Of the 44 men who have served as president of the US, 31 had military service. Twenty-four of them served in the Army, or in state militias (our modern-day National Guard). Though being in the military is not a requirement for the presidency, President George Washington started a trend that saw future presidents in some cases making their name as war heroes: Theodore Roosevelt received the Medal of Honor for his famous charge up San Juan Hill, and George H.W. Bush received the Distinguished Flying Cross during World War II and barely escaped after his plane was shot down.

7. The Army owns so much land that if it were a state, it would be larger than Hawaii and Massachusetts combined.

Not surprisingly, the Army has a ton of infrastructure. Soldiers serve at 158 installations around the world, and the service owns more than 15 million acres of land across the US, which totals up to roughly 24,000 square miles. That would make the "State of Army" larger than smaller states like Maryland, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Vermont.

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NOW WATCH: How the US military spends its billions

Otto Warmbier, an American university student held prisoner in North Korea for 17 months and said by his family to be in a coma, was medically evacuated from the reclusive country after a rare visit there from a high-level U.S. official.

Warmbier, 22, a University of Virginia student from suburban Cincinnati, arrived in the United States on Tuesday evening, witnesses said.

His release came after Joseph Yun, the U.S. State Department's special envoy on North Korea, traveled to Pyongyang and demanded Warmbier's release on "humanitarian grounds," capping a flurry of secret diplomatic contacts, a U.S. official said.

Warmbier's parents, Fred and Cindy, confirmed their son was on a medevac flight.

"Sadly, he is in a coma and we have been told he has been in that condition since March of 2016," the parents said in a statement. "We learned of this only one week ago. We want the world to know how we and our son have been brutalized and terrorized by the pariah regime in North Korea."

Warmbier was detained in January 2016 and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in March last year for trying to steal an item with a propaganda slogan, according to North Korean media.

Warmbier's plane landed at Cincinnati Municipal Lunken Airport at around 10.15 p.m. local time (0215 GMT), according to a Reuters witness. Medical personnel carried a male, believed to be Warmbier and wearing a blue shirt and dark blue pants, off the plane without the use of a stretcher.

The person carried from the plane did not appear to be moving independently, the Reuters witness said.

A small group of family friends was nearby to celebrate Warmbier's arrival, cheering and holding signs that read "Pray for Otto" and "Welcome home Otto."

The man was loaded into an ambulance bound for the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where a hospital spokeswoman said he would receive treatment.

Warmbier's family said they were told by North Korean officials, through contacts with American envoys, that Warmbier fell ill from botulism some time after his March 2016 trial and lapsed into a coma after taking a sleeping pill, the Washington Post reported.

The New York Times quoted a senior U.S. official as saying Washington recently received intelligence reports that Warmbier had been repeatedly beaten in custody.

Hours after his release, the U.S. government blamed Pyongyang for a raft of cyber attacks stretching back to 2009 and warned more were likely.

Big priority

Warmbier's release came as former U.S. basketball star Dennis Rodman arrived in North Korea on Tuesday, returning to the nuclear-armed country where he met leader Kim Jong Un on previous visits.

The State Department denied any connection between Warmbier's release and Rodman's visit, which President Donald Trump's administration said it did not authorize.

The State Department is continuing to discuss three other detained Americans with North Korea, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said.

Since taking office in January, Trump has faced a growing national security challenge from North Korea, which has conducted a series of ballistic missile tests in defiance of U.S. and international sanctions.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters on Air Force One that "bringing Otto home was a big priority for the president."

In rare high-level contacts, Yun met senior North Korean officials in Oslo in May, where it was agreed Swedish officials in Pyongyang, who handle U.S. consular affairs there, would be allowed to see all four American detainees, a State Department official said.

The North Koreans later urgently requested another meeting in New York. Yun met North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations on June 6 and was told about Warmbier's condition, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Tillerson consulted with Trump and arrangements were made for Yun and a medical team to travel to Pyongyang, the official said.

Yun arrived on Monday, visited Warmbier with two doctors and demanded his release, the official said. The North Koreans agreed and he was flown out on Tuesday.

"In no uncertain terms North Korea must explain the causes of his coma," veteran former diplomat Bill Richardson said in a statement after speaking to Warmbier's parents. Richardson has played a role in past negotiations with North Korea.

SEE ALSO: The US student medically evacuated from North Korea is in 'bad shape,' has been in a coma for a year

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Though the US Army celebrates its birthday as June 14, 1775, it didn't have the special operators with their distinctive green beret until much later.

Army Special Forces got its start on June 19, 1952, and since then its soldiers have been at the forefront of fights in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan and are now advising US-backed forces inside Syria.

They call themselves the quiet professionals, and they are one of the most elite fighting groups in the world.

Their mission is unconventional warfare — taking small teams to train and lead guerrilla forces.

Special Forces soldiers usually work together in a 12-man A-Team, with each man holding a specific job: The ranking officer is the team leader, the weapons sergeant knows just about every weapon in the world, the communications sergeant tees up ordnance or extract, and the medics can take lives as quickly as saving them.

It may seem crazy to send only 12 guys into a hostile country, but it's not crazy when they are Special Forces.

The US Army Special Forces are known for their exceptional skill and professionalism in modern war.

Alongside the CIA, they were the first Americans on the ground in Afghanistan only one month after 9/11.

There they linked up with the Northern Alliance and brought Hamid Karzai into Kabul.

The father of Otto Warmbier, the US student detained by North Korea and medically evacuated to his family in a coma, gave a press conference on Thursday morning and called for Kim Jong Un's regime to be held responsible.

Otto Warmbier, who was detained for attempting to steal a propaganda banner from a hotel in North Korea, came back home on Tuesday in "bad shape," having been in a coma since shortly after his trial.

The Warmbier family told The Washington Post's Anna Fifield that the North Koreans told them Otto was stricken with botulism after his trial, took a sleeping pill, and had not woken up since. But now, doctors are saying it looks more like a "severe neurological injury."

Wearing the jacket his son stood trial in, Fred Warmbier addressed a crowd in Cincinnati  on Thursday and dispelled some of the myths around his son's release.

"Dennis Rodman had nothing to do with Otto," said Warmbier, referencing the high-profile trip the former NBA superstar to North Korea took the same day Otto was released. "It's a diversion ... this is all planned."

Instead, he said, Otto's release stemmed from the work of US diplomats in the State Department.

"Last evening we received a very nice phone call from President Trump who told us that Secretary of State Tillerson worked hard to help bring Otto home. We are extremely grateful for their efforts and concern," Warmbier said.

Warmbier also expressed dissatisfaction with the "pariah regime in North Korea" that "terrorized and brutalized" Otto for 18 months in an interview with Fox News' Tucker Carlson.

"They're brutal. There's no sense to anything here," he told Carlson. "They've crossed a line with my son, Otto."

In Cincinnati, Warmbier criticized the world's approach to North Korea.

"I don't see a tough approach to North Korea. They're still able to take Americans hostage and abuse them. They're still able to be terrorists in the world," he said.

"It started with prisoners of the Korean war, it extended to the USS Pueblo, and now it extended to my son Otto," he added, referencing North Korea's 1968 capture of 83 US Navy sailors and their subsequent torture and captivity. 

Warmbier expressed mixed feelings about his son being home.

"I would like to highlight this morning the bittersweet feeling that my family has. Relief that Otto is now home in the arms of those who love him, and anger that he was so brutally treated for so long."

SEE ALSO: North Korea is the number one threat to the US — Here's what happens when they get ICBMs

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Iranian naval patrol boats have again conducted an "unsafe and unprofessional" encounter with the US Navy in international waters near a critical choke point for maritime traffic, but this time they took a different approach.

The Iranian navy ship, identified as a Houdong-class by the US Naval institute, came within 800 yards of the USS Bataan helicopter carrier, USS Cole guided-missile destroyer, and the USNS Washington Chambers cargo ship and "trained a laser on a CH-53E helicopter that accompanied the formation," Commander Bill Urban, spokesman for the Navy's fifth fleet said in a statement to Business Insider. 

The Iranian ship shined its spotlight "from bow to stern and stern to bow before heading outbound from the formation," said Urban. 

"Illuminating helicopters with lasers at night is dangerous as it creates a navigational hazard that can impair vision and can be disorienting to pilots using night vision goggles," said Urban. The laser caused the CH-53 to fire off flares as a countermeasure.

While nobody was injured, the laser could have caused a catastrophic crash for the Marines onboard, and there's no reason for Iran to do it besides messing with the US military or testing its resolve.

"Perhaps this was a probing effort by Iran to determine US response and the rules of engagement," Lawrence Brennan, a former US Navy captain and an expert of maritime law at Fordham University, told Business Insider. 

The Iranian navy has long engaged in provocative, aggressive maneuvers towards US Navy ships. In March, the USS Mahan, a guided-missile destroy, had to fire warning shots at a group of fast-approaching Iranian navy ships.

The danger of Iran's small attack craft was underscored when a similar type of ship was modified into a suicide boat used by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen to damage a Saudi Arabian naval vessel. 

"At least 36 incidents have been made public, including eight this year," Brennan said.

But the wide majority of these incidents occurred under former President Barack Obama, whose commitment to the Iran deal precluded most action against Iran.

Now, President Donald Trump has campaigned on making Iran pay for such provocations.

"With Iran," Trump said as a candidate in September 2016, "when they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats, and they make gestures at our people that they shouldn't be allowed to make, they will be shot out of the water."

Iran's new tactic of shining lasers, short of menacing US Navy ships with their attack craft, may show a calculated step in keeping the pressure on the US.

SEE ALSO: Trump is breaking all of Obama's rules in Syria — and it seems to be working

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Asked on Thursday by Rep. Tim Ryan of the House Appropriations Committee to explain why the US doesn't just go to war to stop North Korea from developing the capability to hit the US, Secretary of Defense James Mattis painted a grim scenario.

"I would suggest that we will win," Mattis said. "It will be a war more serious in terms of human suffering than anything we've seen since 1953.

"It will involve the massive shelling of an ally's capital, which is one of the most densely packed cities on earth," Mattis said of Seoul, South Korea, which boasts a metro-area population of 25 million.

"It would be a war that fundamentally we don't want," Mattis said, but "we would win at great cost."

Mattis explained that because the threat from North Korea loomed so large and a military confrontation would destroy so much, he, President Donald Trump, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had all made a peaceful solution a top priority.

Mattis said the topic of North Korea dominated Trump's meeting in April with President Xi Jinping of China, North Korea's only ally, and that the US intended to make China understand that "North Korea today is a strategic burden, not a strategic asset."

China argues it has limited influence on Pyongyang, but as one expert explained, Beijing could at any moment cripple North Korea through trade means, forcing it to come to the negotiating table.

Mattis made clear that the US was nearing the end of its rope in dealing with North Korea, saying: "We're exhausting all possible diplomatic efforts in this regard."

North Korea recently taunted Trump by saying it was capable of hitting New York with a nuclear missile, but Mattis said a war today would hurt our Asian allies.

"It would be a serious, a catastrophic war, especially for innocent people in some of our allied countries, to include Japan most likely," Mattis said.

SEE ALSO: North Korea is the number one threat to the US — Here's what happens when they get ICBMs

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Seven sailors are missing after the USS Fitzgerald, a guided-missile destroyer, collided with a Philippine-flagged merchant vessel about 56 nautical miles southwest of Yokosuka, Japan, according to a statement from the US Navy's 7th Fleet.

The crash occurred at approximately 2:30 a.m. local time, and Japan's coast guard was reportedly on the scene to assist conducting medical evacuations. So far, at least three sailors are said to have been evacuated. 

The US Navy also said that the ship suffered damage on starboard side, above and below the waterline, and that it had begun to take on water. The commanding officer was reportedly incapacitated and the executive officer is in command, according to Navy Times.

The Fitzgerald is reportedly able to sustain itself using its own power; however, is "limited" in movement. Two US Navy tugs were also dispatched to provide assistance.

"As more information is learned, we will be sure to share to it with the Fitzgerald families and when appropriate the public," read a statement from Adm. John Richardson. "All of our thoughts and prayers are with the Fitzgerald crew and their families."

The Fitzgerald had recently made a port call to the US Navy's Subic Bay base in the Philippines and conducted patrols in the South China Sea. 

The Fitzgerald maintains constant contact with Japan as it is forward-based in Yokosuka. 

Here's aerial footage of the damaged USS Fitzgerald.

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The US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) oversees roughly 70,000 operators, support units, and civilians from each of the military's sister service branches.

America's elite soldiers, work under a shroud of secrecy to carry out high-risk missions with swift precision, laser focus and firm perseverance.

Operators work in up to 80 countries with sometimes less than 48 hours notice to accomplish assignments in counterterrorism, unconventional warfare, capture and assassinations of wanted peoples, and training of foreign forces.

Working with the military's most advanced technology and weapons, the projected FY2015 budget for US Special Ops forces is approximately $9.9 billion. 

The following graphic lists the strengths of each unit and how these elite warriors combine their skills to serve the interests of global security.

Amanda Macias contributed to an earlier version of this article.

SEE ALSO: 18 Things Navy SEALs Never Leave Home Without

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