By Robbin Laird In the clear desert night over Arizona, a CH-53K King Stallion slid into position behind the tanker, its rotors biting into thin air as the crew prepared to take the hose once more. Below, the Sonoran Desert stretched away in darkness. Above and around, the aircraft was…
When I worked on German reunification in the 1980s, one of the core concerns was not simply whether the two German states could be brought together institutionally, but whether the deep historical and cultural gap between East and West Germany could be bridged in any meaningful way. The question was…
Fifteen photographs from April 13, 2026, at the Chocolate Mountain Aerial Gunnery Range in California document the most operationally complex exercise in the WTI 2-26 series: Assault Support Tactics 1. The photographs span the full operational picture from contractor technicians assembling threat-representative UAS at a mountain observation point, through ground…
By Robbin Laird The numbers tell a stark story. In early 2026, the United Kingdom fields a Royal Navy whose surface combatant force has shrunk faster than its modernization programs can backfill, while Iran has assembled a numerically larger and, in some respects, more dynamically evolving regional fleet. This is…
By Robbin Laird This article is the convergence point of several analytical projects I have pursued in recent years: the breakdown of the post–Cold War order and the global war in Ukraine, the reconfiguration of power across key middle states such as Australia and Brazil in the shadow of China’s…
By Robbin Laird When the history of the Navy’s transition from kill chain to kill web is written, the creation of the Maritime ISR Weapons and Tactics Instructor — the MISR WTI — will be recognized as one of the foundational moves. The program did not emerge from a requirements…
Energy security is a key challenge facing Australia as an island continent at the bottom of the Asia Pacific region. According to the Australian Defence Minister. “It is an area of enabling capability within Defence that has been significantly underfunded in recent years, and it is one which this white…
Recently, our partner defenceWeb looked at the evolving challenges of maritime defense and security seen from South Africa.
