6/3/12: By Richard Weitz From its initial emergence as a British mandate following World War I, to the post-independence monarchy from 1932-1958, through the military coups that ushered in the rule of first the Baath Party in 1968 and then Saddam Hussein in 1979, external threats and internal tensions have…
6/1/12: by Ed Timperlake In a case of Just DON'T do it, the USAF charges backwards. For the USAF acquisition team which can not buy 12 Super Tucanos and get on with it, we have a new rumbling from the den of USAF acquisition. In effect, USAF acquisition says: We…
5/31/12: by Robbin Laird I was saddened to learn of the passing of Joe Fitchett. It is not just a loss of a friend and dialogue partner on the evolution of Europe, but the true passing of an era. Joe was in many ways the representative of a passing era.…
5/30/12: By Robbin Laird I am returning from the two-day event held each year at Airbus Military called the Trade Media Briefing. This one is of course TMB-12. This year, the trade press started in Madrid and then went to Toulouse to hear presentations on the state of play of…
5/30/2012 By Robbin Laird I had a chance to meet and talk with M. Ghazemy Mahmud, the editor of the Malaysian based Asian Defence Journal about his impressions of the recently completed A400M tour of Asia and perceptions of how the A400M would fit into Asian plans and thinking about…
By Robbin Laird During the Airbus Trade Media 2012 event in Toulouse, I had a chance to sit down with Pravin Sawhney, Editor of the Indian defense magazine, Force, and to get caught up on the state of play in the Indian fighter selection process. http://www.forceindia.net/ Last year, Sawhney provided…
5/29/12: By Robbin Laird During the Airbus Military Trade Media event, I had a chance to talk with Vikramjit S. Chopra, Managing Editor of Vayu Aerospace and Defense Review about the Indian fighter competition. http://www.vayuaerospace.in/ http://www.vayuaerospace.in/images1/IAF_Strike_Mirage_2000s.pdf I asked my colleague: why did India pick the Rafale over the other Europeans…
5/28/12: by Robbin Laird During my recent visits in Spain and France as part of the Trade Media event held by Airbus Military, I had a chance to reflect on two key elements shaping the future of military aviation. The first is that no platform fights alone. Whether it is…
