By Pierre Tran Paris - France is due in November to arm its Reaper medium-altitude, long-endurance drone with the GBU-12 smart bomb, with the Hellfire missile to be fitted next year, a defense source said. The French Air Force arms the Mirage 2000 fighter jet with the GBU-12, said the source, adding,…
By Robbin Laird During my most recent visit to London, a senior defense official flat out stated: “With the return of geography, the focus needs to be clearly on our Northern and Southern Flanks, and this means the emphasis needs to be placed upon air-naval integration. "The Royal Navy and…
By Pierre Tran Paris - Western allies face the threat of a wide range of Chinese and Russian ballistic missiles and cruise weapons, while North Korea and Iran look to their missile capability to back up claims to regional power. The nature of the development of Chinese and Russian missile…
By Pierre Tran Paris - Fincantieri and Naval Group (NG) signed June 14 an agreement setting out cooperation on their Poseidon project, a joint venture aimed at boosting Italian and French collaboration in building and selling warships for navies at home and abroad. “Following the announcement made on 23 October 2018,…
By Kenneth Maxwell Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian (1869-1955) was known during his lifetime as "Mr. Five Per Cent.” This was after his personal share of Middle East oil. He has remained a very elusive historical individual, a spider at the heart of a veritable global web, an oilman and financier, who…
By Robbin Laird In 2012, I wrote a piece for Breaking Defense which focused on the Bold Alligator Exercise that year and how the image of change was difficulty to see. The coming of the Osprey was about to totally change amphibious operations, but because it was an amphibious exercise, folks…
By Pierre Tran Paris - French electronics company Thales expects to bring greater network connection and speeded up responses as contributions to the Future Combat Air System, a project key to the concept of European defense backed by president Emmanuel Macron. “Clearly the role that we intend to play, in…
The Russians have expanded the perimeter of their defense capabilities in the Arctic and in so doing have raised concerns from the other Arctic powers. This is clearly a core concern for the Nordics and an important input to their defense modernization efforts, nationally and collectively. And certainly, the Nordic…
