2014-06-24 Last week, one of our SLD colleagues received this message from an American in Iraq about the situation at that time. Huge stockpiles of US armor, weapons, heavy artillery, mortars, armored vehicles, tanks, the entire main weapons depot and the main helicopter base, have been captured, mostly intact, by…
06/23/2014 by Robbin Laird When the F-35B goes to England this summer and makes appearances at two air shows, the focus will be upon the plane and its first appearance at a major air show. But in reality, the focus needs to be on the arrival of the first operational…
2014-06-23 By Stephen Blank On June 3 Moscow announced that it was lifting its earlier embargo on arms sales to Pakistan and negotiating with Islamabad to supply the Pakistanis with Mi-35 Hind attack helicopters (a helicopter already being used in Afghanistan by the US with its Afghan allies as well).…
2014-06-19 With the first Russian Mistral completed and with the second ship on its way, the key moment has arrived to train the Russians to operate the ship. Training is crucial because the ship is so different from any ship the Russians have operated in the past. The Mistral is…
2014-06-22 By Ed Timperlake In 1966 the US Navy made a short movie about what was then called an “Attack Carrier.” The movie describes going to flight quarters and conducting combat air operations from an aircraft carrier off Vietnam. The political maneuvering by a President and Secretary of Defense who…
2014-06-22 by Robbin Laird The crisis in Iraq is the latest chapter in the post-Arab spring narrative. But Iraq is not an-itself crisis but part of a wider context starting with Benghazi, to Egypt, to Syria, to Iran and back again. Actions across any one part of the region reverberate…
2014-06-21 In a recent presentation at the Air Force Association, Col. Michael Orr, the CO of VMX-22, provided a look at how the USMC is shaping its combat cloud approach for the MAGTF. At the heart of the approach is working the following challenge: “We are working to push increased…
2014-06-15 by Robbin Laird The discussions of the USS America, although few and far between, have really focused on one of two issues: What it does not have, namely a well deck Or that it is an aircraft carrier at 50,000 plus tons and competes with the large deck carrier…
