2017-10-07 By Robbin Laird This week has been certainly an interesting one. With Catalonia voting for independence, Spain and the broader European Union face a tough challenge. Clearly, cities and urban regions have become more important as the broader European framework of trade and economic relations have evolved. In many…
2017-10-06 By Gulshan Luthra and Air Marshal VK Jimmy Bhatia (Retd) New Delhi. The Indian Air Force (IAF) is finally set to issue a Request for Information (RFI) to the US Lockheed Martin for F 16 and to Swedish Saab for Gripen for acquiring 114 single engine combat aircraft. In an…
2017-10-06 Information war and hybrid threats have been honed to a 21st century art form by the Russians under President Putin. But these are really early days for shaping ways to deal with the IW/hybrid threat challenge and to deal more generally with the use of military power for limited…
2017-09-26 Recently, the French, Norwegian and German Air Forces have added new tanking capabilities to their forces. And in the Norwegian and German cases did so under a collective European defense acquisition approach. In a press release dated September 7, 2017, Airbus Defence and Space noted the first flight of…
2017-10-05 Approximately 50% of the airplanes coming off of the final assembly line at Fort Worth are partner F-35s. And because of how the supply chain is designed, companies in partner states not only play a key role of that partner's plane but on the global enterprise as well. This…
2017-09-26 Aurora 17 is the largest Swedish exercise in more than 20 years, and is intended to exercise Sweden’s defense capability against a larger, sophisticated opponent. According to the Swedish Ministry of Defence: In order to increase military capabilities, Swedish Armed Forces will conduct Exercise Aurora 17 – a national exercise that will…
2017-09-30 By Robbin Laird © 2017 FrontLine Defence (Vol 14, No 4) The rebuilding of Russia’s Northern fleet and its defense bastion built around the Kola Peninsula creates a direct challenge to the Norwegian area of interest. Clearly, the expanded reach of Russia into the Arctic also affects the nature of the…
2017-09-25 Several years ago we visited a key USCG air base where the new Ocean Sentry patrol aircraft had just arrived for service. We have reposted that interview done in 2010 below. But fast forward to 2017, and that aircraft has now reached a flight hour milestone. In a ceremony…
