A new NATO infrastructure facility has just opened its doors at the Tapa Base in Estonia. The hub is able to receive and facilitate the onward movement of NATO forces, including the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF), and will be used for exercises and prepositioning of equipment. The…
By Todd Miller As has been widely reported, the conclusion of the Light Attack Experiment (LAE) resulted in orders for only a couple each of Sierra Nevada/Embraer’s A-29 Super Tucanos and Textron Aviation Defense’s Beechcraft AT-6 Wolverines. However, the USAF decision to be the launch customer of the AT-6E —…
By Robbin Laird Living Inside the Beltway, one would clearly miss how to understand how the Romeo helicopter, a variant of the Seahawk helicopter, in expanding the envelope of fleet defense, was itself part of how one might reconsider the way ahead for the fleet. The Romeo is the successor…
By Robbin Laird For some, the shift from using kill web instead of the kill chain is a variant of wordsmithing. But it is not. I have worked on fifth generation aircraft since the mid-2000s and certainly understood what an impact a data rich aircraft flying as a fleet would…
As I have argued earlier, the Triton is bringing a whole new layer to the kill web for fleet operations. Operating at high altitude, the Triton is delivering area wide ISR data for dynamic targeting. Indeed, one way to look at the way ahead for the integrated distributed force is…
By Robbin Laird On July 2, 1776, the signers of the Declaration of Independence finished their work. The document was approved by Congress on July 4, 1776 and hence that became Independence Day for the newly forged United States of America. The two youngest signers of the Declaration of Independence…
In our forthcoming book on The Return of Direct to Defense to Europe: Meeting the Challenge 21st Century Authoritarian Challenge, Murielle Delaporte highlighted that with regard to defense policy under President Trump has seen an upsurge in defense capabilities postured for the direct defense of Europe. "The return of direct…
By Pierre Tran Paris - France has pulled out of a NATO naval mission in the Mediterranean in protest against a Turkish frigate allegedly switching on targeting radar on a French warship, plunging ties between two members of the military alliance to a new low. “The president of the French…