After the Fighter, the Tank: Franco-German Arms Cooperation Slips Again

10/26/2026 By Pierre Tran PARIS – France has scrambled to limit the damage after its chief of the defense staff told parliamentarians Oct. 8 that partner Germany has pulled out of a landmark project to build a new heavy tank and uncrewed vehicles, known as the main ground combat system (MGCS). There was talk of Berlin and Paris focusing instead on… Read more »

Same Range, Separate Roads: What the Deep-Strike Week Says About Franco-German Arms Cooperation

10/25/2026 By Robbin Laird Having been a long-term observer of Franco-German defense industrial cooperation, the thing I know for sure is that it is never static and is often subject to political maneuvering, industrial dialogue, distrusts and conflict. The new stage of that co-operation continues in that tradition. In the same week in October 2026, the French and German armies each… Read more »

In Brief: What Ten Days of Short Reports Tell Us About a Changing Strategic Landscape

10/24/2026 Second Line of Defense has always been about the long view: interviews with the people who build and run forces, analyses of how militaries are changing, and books that pull those threads together. But strategic change does not only show up in the big set pieces. It shows up in a cabinet decision in Suva, a gravel road in the… Read more »

Reach Needs a Web: The MV-75, Autonomy and the Future of Air Assault

10/23/2026 By Robbin Laird The commander of the 101st Airborne Division has just set out the operational problem for the next generation of Army air assault. He did it in plain language, and he did not claim that a single platform will solve it. In a recent Task & Purpose interview, Maj. Gen. David Gardner described the division's mission: deliver a… Read more »

From the Franco-German Engine to a Networked Pillar

10/22/2026 The last installment closed on a specific claim: that if strategy is a wager continuously remade as conditions shift, then the question of where strategic weight sits within an alliance can't be treated as fixed either. This installment picks up exactly that thread — the geography of European defense, and how far it has moved from the framing Robbin Laird's… Read more »

When Ships Can’t Buy What Chaos Requires: Naval Power, Maritime Governance, and the Rise of Commercial Intelligence Authority

10/21/2026 By Robbin Laird A recent essay in the Center for International Maritime Security, Hervé Auffret's “What Naval Power Cannot Buy,” makes an argument that should unsettle anyone still planning maritime strategy around hull counts and missile inventories. Ships, he writes, can deter a competitor, compel a rival, and escort a convoy. What they cannot do is build the institutions, relationships,… Read more »