European primes can evolve into kill web ecosystem orchestrators but only if they move faster than their current political, financial, and organizational wiring allows, and Ukraine's war laboratory window will not stay open indefinitely. The strategic question is deceptively simple: Can Europe's defense primes make the transition from platform manufacturers…
I arrived at the Pentagon on the morning of September 11th, 2001, expecting a routine meeting on post-Soviet nuclear security issues. Within hours, the world had changed. So had the trajectory of American defense analysis. For those of us who felt the building rock that morning, September 11th is not…
[caption id="attachment_149311" align="alignnone" width="962"] Screenshot[/caption] The emergence of Ukraine’s Flamingo cruise missile is about more than a new long‑range strike weapon; it is a signal of how the missile industrial base itself is being re‑engineered under wartime pressure. What makes Flamingo strategically important is not simply its range or payload,…
By Robbin Laird The world’s navies are crossing a strategic fault line in which traditional assumptions about capital ships, carrier battle groups, and exquisite platforms no longer hold. The emerging era of uncrewed, networked, and AI-enabled systems is creating a new maritime order in which the force that adapts fastest,…
By Kenneth Maxwell When I wrote in April 2012 of 'a tale of two competitions,' I was describing a Brazil suspended between options, still debating the merits of the Dassault Rafale, the Boeing F-18 Super Hornet, and the Saab Gripen NG while simultaneously wrestling with the politics of Embraer's Super…
[caption id="attachment_149311" align="alignnone" width="962"] Screenshot[/caption] Japan’s role in the hypersonic enterprise is no longer peripheral or symbolic; it is becoming one of the central test cases for how offensive hypersonic strike, hypersonic defense, and alliance politics can be woven together into a coherent Indo‑Pacific deterrence posture. The way Tokyo is…
2016-03-02 Our colleague Air Vice Marshal (Retired) John Blackburn has focused attention on the energy security shortfall for Australia for some time. As an island continent at the bottom of the Asia Pacific region, Australia is heavily dependent upon liquid energy imports and with a rapidly disappearing domestic refinery production capacity,…
2016-01-30 Recently, our partner defenceWeb looked at the evolving challenges of maritime defense and security seen from South Africa. Thursday, 28 January 2016 Economic growth through development of the ocean economy as part of Operation Phakisa requires effective maritime surveillance and defence, with nearly 4 000 kilometres of South Africa’s…
