By Robbin Laird When I sat down with then Chief of the Australian Navy, Vice Admiral Tim Barrett, in 2017, one of the quieter points he made has aged into one of the more prescient ones. Amid the launch of the largest Royal Australian Navy recapitalization since the Second World…
By Robbin Laird When I spoke recently with Ami Daniel, the CEO and co-founder of Windward, I came away convinced that his company has been building toward something that most of the defense and intelligence establishment has been too slow to grasp: that in an era when no single navy…
By Robbin Laird On June 16, 2026, under a covered pavilion at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, the Marine Corps activated Marine Unmanned Maintenance Squadron 14 — MUMS-14 — as a subordinate command of Marine Aircraft Group 14, 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing. Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey F. Carben took command;…
By Robbin Laird In the United States, the news cycle belongs almost entirely to Donald Trump. In the Mother Country, it belongs, once again, to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. After six years in Montecito, Harry and Meghan are heading back to Britain, settling this fall in the Cotswolds…
Paris – France won €21.2 billion ($24.7 billion) of export orders for weapons in 2025, helped by India’s contract for 26 Rafale fighter jets and related armaments, the annual report of the armed forces ministry to parliament said. That 2025 value fell slightly from foreign arms orders of €21.6 billion…
By Robbin Laird South Korea has spent the past four years converting itself from a net importer of weapons into one of the ten largest arms exporters on Earth, and it has done so with a speed that has unsettled established Western suppliers and delighted frontline states looking for equipment…
By Robbin Laird A light rain fell over the parade field at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point on the morning of June 16, 2026, but it did nothing to slow the proceedings. Under a covered pavilion ringed with the stadium-style red seats that mark official functions on the station,…
By Robbin Laird The official photographic record of Weapons and Tactics Instructor Course 2-26, running from March through late April 2026 at MCAS Yuma and across a range of training sites in the American Southwest, is more than a set of public affairs images. Examined systematically, it constitutes a documentary…