06/26/12: Second Line of Defense’s Murielle Delaporte recently spent ten days with the French forces in Afghanistan on the ground. We interviewed her today by phone, just after her return to Paris. She returned on the same plane with the dead and wounded from the Taliban terrorist attack in Kapisa.…
6/25/12: By Richard Weitz Sino-Iraq relations will likely continue to strengthen in the near future. China, which imports more than half its oil, needs Iraqi energy, while Iraq, which continues to suffer from sectarian violence and an unstable political environment, depends heavily on China’s willingness to invest in the country…
6/24/12: By Richard Weitz On November 10, 2011, the Center for Science, Technology, and Security Policy at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Hudson Institute Center for Political-Military Analysis and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) hosted a workshop to discuss the future of the Department…
6/24/12: by Ed Timperlake A recent Heritage Foundation seminar focused on the F-35 and allies. The presentations were by Colonel Kevin J. Killea,
United States Marine Corps, Dr. Robbin F. Laird,
Co-Founder and Senior Analyst, Second Line of Defense and Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski
Military Legislative Assistant, Office of Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK). The…
6/22/12: By Richard Weitz For the past two decades, China has neither followed nor strongly opposed U.S. policy regarding Iraq. In the lead-up to the 1990-91 Gulf War, the PRC adhered to a carefully crafted neutral stance, abstaining from the U.N. vote authorizing the use of force while both condemning…
6/21/12: by Robbin Laird A key element of the F-35 decision by Norway was the acceptance of the integration of a new Kongsberg missile onto the F-35 itself. Through the development of the Naval Strike Missile (NSM), the Norwegian Armed Forces has established KONGSBERG and other Norwegian industry in the…
6/19/12: by Richard Weitz In addition to these strains between Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites, three sources of Arab-Kurdish tensions exist despite their shared Iraqi Sunni background: territorial disputes, constitutional disagreements, and diverging foreign policy orientations. Since 2003, Iraqi Kurds have simultaneously been creating an autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in…
6/19/12: by Kenneth Maxwell The "Folha de Sao Paulo" reported on Monday, June 11th, 2012, that Brazil has spent almost R$2 billion in Haiti between June 2004 and May 2012. What began as an emergency military operation to provide security for six months with a cost estimated at R$150 million, reached almost R$…