By Robbin Laird The Russian takeover of Crimea signaled an end to the optimistic post-Cold War era. As Putin continued to ramp up challenges, the West gradually began to focus on the return of direct defence. Protecting critical infrastructure from cyber attack is, in many ways, surpassing other forms of…
By Robbin Laird In visits to the Nordics over the past few years, we have been looking at the return of direct defense and the challenges facing Northern Europe with the shaping of a new Russian challenge. This challenge is hybrid, nuclear and direct. We have looked as well at…
The Ministry of Defence of Singapore has started its process of formally replacing their legacy fleet with the F-35. An article by Andrew McLaughlin published in the Australian Defence Business Review on January 19, 2019 focused on the decision by Singapore's Ministry of Defence. The Republic of Singapore Air force…
Late last year, the UK Ministry of Defence provided an update on its 2015 report on defense modernization. As one commentator put it with regard to the report: A combination of strained alliances and ever-expanding political demands explains the MOD’s determination to secure funds to rebuild UK military capability. After…
The F-35 has come at the time of the strategic shift for the liberal democracies from dealing primarily with the land wars to preparing for crisis management with peer competitors. We referred a decade ago to the coming of the F-35 as the renorming of airpower which was a clear…
By Murielle Delaporte When the French minister of the armed forces, Florence Parly, visited the heart of space technology in Toulouse last September, she stressed how much space has become over the past years a key domain for national security. She noted that the Russian satellite Luch-Olymp had recently been…
By defenceWeb The Algerian Navy has commissioned into service two new Kilo class submarines delivered from Russia, the Ouarsenis and Hoggar. The vessels were commissioned on 9 January at the Mers El Kebir naval base in Oran by the Deputy Minister of National Defence, Chief of Staff of the National…
By Guy Martin The French Air Force has sent two Dassault Rafale fighter jets to the island of Reunion for training. The aircraft landed at Gillot Air Force Base on 14 January after a 13 hour flight. They were accompanied by a C-135FR aerial refueling tanker. They were due to…
