2013-10-03 Hubert Stephenson was the co-pilot of the B-17 which was forced to crash land on July 4, 1943 in France. We participated in this summer's ceremony to honor the crew and to place a monument in the local area in their honor. A ceremony was held on Noirmoutier island, France,…
2013-10-03 by Robbin Laird The PRC leadership clearly has growing global aspirations. It is also a leadership living on top of a caldron of economic and ethnic dynamics. The two can actually go together, in terms of global play and reach being a means of containing domestic pressures. Obviously, the…
2013-09-29 By Commodore (Retd) Ranjit B Rai The Indian Navy has operated eight Foxtrot, ten Kilo, four HDW-1500, and two nuclear submarines, a Charlie (1988-91) and an Akula (from April 2013) both named INS Chakra on lease, for five decades, and has fired hundreds of torpedoes and dozens of missiles…
2013-10-01 By Robbin Laird Recently, we published a comprehensive report by Richard Weitz on Azerbaijan. Weitz argued that: The Republic of Azerbaijan is a close U.S. ally since Azerbaijanis regained their independence following the Soviet Union’s collapse. It has become a prominent role model for Muslim-majority nations seeking to manage…
2013-09-30 A key characteristic of core 21st century multi-mission systems is often their multi-national manufacturing character. This is centrally true for the new A400M, which has just been delivered to the French Air Force. [caption id="attachment_57693" align="alignnone" width="300"] Welcoming the A400M to the French Air Force, September 30, 2013. Credit: Airbus…
2013-09-30 By Guy Martin The US military has stopped flying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) from its main African base in Djibouti after a string of crashes, moving operations to a remote desert airstrip. Camp Lemonnier, next to Djibouti’s international airport, is the only official American military base on the African continent…
2013-09-30 by Chloé-Alexandra Laird I had the honor in June of this year to ask a couple of questions to Michel Adrien, a witness to the B17 crash in the town of Noirmoutier, France on July 4th, 1943. Q: How old were you when you witnessed this American plane crash…
2013-09-28 Earlier Ed Timperlake looked at the South Korean evaluation Silent Eagle and underscored the need for South Korea to reconsider. John Boyd in his lecture (which I sat through twice) had a sine qua non building block for his work: the F-86 versus Mig-15 exchange rate kills by his…