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Brazil at the Crossroads: Why Resource Sovereignty Requires Democratic Partnership

09/17/2025 Brazil stands at a critical juncture that will determine whether it emerges as a strategic power or remains trapped as a raw material supplier in China's sphere of influence. While President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's administration pursues deeper integration with Beijing through initiatives like BRICS expansion and transcontinental infrastructure projects, this path threatens to foreclose the very opportunities that… Read more »

Not the Russian Empire: Putin Brings Back Soviet Scientific and Technological Decline

09/15/2025 By Robbin Laird My friend and colleague Erik Hoffmann and I worked extensively on analyzing the efforts to change the Soviet system under the pressures of the technological revolution of the 1970s and 1980s. This was when Brzezinski published his book on the technotronic age and described the challenges a Soviet autocratic system faced to try to modernize. The Soviet… Read more »

Russia’s Adaptation to Drone Warfare

09/14/2025 By Pasquale Preziosa In recent months, Russia has radically transformed the way it uses drones, making these low-cost tools a pillar of its strategy. What appeared at the beginning of the war to be a rudimentary bombing campaign, conducted with Iranian-made aircraft adapted for local use, has gradually evolved into a much more sophisticated approach, capable of integrating industrial production,… Read more »

Echoes of the 1930s: Comparing International Coalitions in the Spanish Civil War and Ukraine Conflict

09/12/2025 History rarely repeats itself exactly, but it often rhymes with haunting resonance. The international coalitions that formed around the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine since 2022 reveal striking parallels in how major powers align themselves during ideological and geopolitical crises. Both conflicts transformed from local disputes into global proxy wars that tested the resolve,… Read more »

From World War I to Modern Warfare: Ukraine’s Vintage Drone Hunters

09/10/2025 In the early hours of a spring morning in 2024, a beaten-up Soviet-era propeller plane taxied to a halt on a rural Ukrainian runway. Two unlikely warriors emerged from the cockpit, a 56-year-old pilot who had learned to fly as a hobby before the war, and a 38-year-old former auto mechanic who had never been in an aircraft before Russia's… Read more »

Admiral Nicolas Vaujour Provides a French Navy Perspective on Global Dynamics

09/08/2025 By Pierre Tran Paris - The Chinese navy was large, growing fast, and led by a complex command structure which showed an aggressive approach in operations at sea, the navy chief of staff, Admiral Nicolas Vaujour, told the Association des Journalistes de Défense (AJD) Sept. 3. Meanwhile, the Russian navy had lost much of its access to the open seas… Read more »

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Hypersonic Weapons and Strategic Competition: From Science Project to Operational Reality

08/27/2025 This report examines the evolution of U.S. hypersonic weapons development from the Bush administration through 2025, tracing how technological promise repeatedly encountered bureaucratic obstacles and shifting strategic priorities. The report argues that after decades of delays caused by focus on counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, American hypersonic programs have finally reached operational readiness, with… Download PDF Now »

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Putin’s War: How Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Triggered a Scientific Exodus

09/05/2025 When Vladimir Putin launched his “special military operation” against Ukraine on February 24, 2022, he envisioned a swift victory that would restore Russia’s great power status. Instead, the invasion has… Read more »

Russia’s Yuan Pivot: How Sanctions Forced Moscow’s Currency Revolution

09/01/2025 When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, few predicted that within two years, Chinese yuan would become the dominant foreign currency in Russian markets. Yet this… Read more »

From Cinematic Battles to Real War: Ukraine’s Journey from Waterloo to Today

08/29/2025 In 1970, the rolling hills and vast plains of Ukraine served as the backdrop for one of cinema’s most ambitious war epics. Sergei Bondarchuk’s “Waterloo” transformed the Soviet republic into… Read more »

Brazil-China Economic Relations: A Critical Assessment of Contemporary Scholarship

08/27/2025 The economic relationship between Brazil and China has emerged as one of the most significant bilateral partnerships in the Global South, fundamentally reshaping both countries’ development trajectories since the early… Read more »

Britain and the IMF Bailout Debate: Economic Crisis or Political Theatre?

08/26/2025 Nearly five decades after Britain’s humiliating dash to the International Monetary Fund for a bailout, warnings of history repeating itself are echoing through Westminster and the City of London. A… Read more »

The CH-53K in Action: Bridging the Gap Between Technology and New Operational Possibilities

08/25/2025 By Robbin Laird The U.S. Marine Corps’ latest heavy-lift helicopter, the CH-53K King Stallion, represents far more than an evolutionary step from its predecessor. In an interview on July 22,… Read more »

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The King Stallion Works with the Joint Force

09/10/2025 U.S. Marines with 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing (MAW) and 2nd Distribution Support Battalion (DSB) perform external lifts at U.S. Coast Guard base Sector Key West, Florida, July 28, 2025. Marines… Read more »

The King Stallion Works Interagency Tasks

09/08/2025 U.S. Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Fred Miller, from Nevada and a CH-53K King Stallion crew chief with Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron (HMH) 461, looks out of a CH-53K near Naval… Read more »

HMH-461 Aviation Expo

09/05/2025 U.S. Marines with Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 461, Marine Aircraft Group 29, 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, showcase a CH-53K King Stallion as part of Fleet Week New York 2025, at… Read more »

SLTE 1-25

09/03/2025 U.S. Marines with Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron (HMH) 461 conduct simulated troop insertion operations with 2nd Battalion 23rd Marines at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, California, Feb.… Read more »

F-35B Ordnance Load

09/01/2025 U.S. Marines load air intercept missile ordnance and launch F-35B Lightning II aircraft assigned to Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 242, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, during flight operations aboard the… Read more »

Task Force Bataan

08/29/2025 Task Force Warhawg, 1st Battalion, 360th Infantry Regiment, 5th Armored Brigade, incorporated counter-unmanned aerial systems training into Task Force Bataan, 1st Battalion, 200th Infantry Regiment’s culminating training exercise in preparation… Read more »

REFORPAC 2025

08/27/2025 Two U.S. Air Force F-35 Lightning II’s fly side by side during exercise Resolute Force Pacific (REFORPAC) 2025 at Misawa Air Base, Japan, July 15, 2025. REFORPAC spans multiple locations… Read more »

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The Second Line of Defense team provides high quality publications with regard to key global strategic developments. You can purchase these on a number of booksellers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Kobo.

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External Lift with CH-53K King Stallions

09/01/2025 U.S. Marines with 2nd Distribution Support Battalion, 2nd Marine Logistics Group, and Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron (HMH) 461, 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, execute external lifts at Naval Air Station Key… Read more »

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