06/03/2011: Second Line of Defense Backgrounder Sudan's northern-based government in Khartoum has forcefully seized control of the disputed Abyei region, risking renewed flare-up of the civil war just when the South Sudan is about to become an independent country on July 9. Northern President Omar al-Bashir had warned that his…
05/27/2011 by Robbin Laird While one of the Second Line of Defense team members was in Russia getting updates on the Russian military, another member of the team was in Tel Aviv getting an update on Israeli perspectives on the strategic situation as seen from Israel. The occasion was the…
06/02/2011 By Robbin Laird When the UK government issued its amazingly “un-strategic” strategic defense review, the main casualties were air and naval power. In probably the most rapid invalidation of a government strategy on record, the Libyan events underscored that everything the Cameron government wished to get rid of, it…
06/03/2011 By Richard Weitz Many of our discussions in Russia last week focused on missile defense issues in preparation for the June 9 meeting of the NATO-Russian Council (NRC) at the level of defense ministers. NATO-Russian differences over ballistic missile defense (BMD) have persisted even after both parties, at the…
A Conversation with Pravin Sawhney [caption id="attachment_19419" align="alignleft" width="180" caption="(Credit: SLD)"][/caption] 06/02/2011 - In Mid-May, Second Line of Defense sat down with Pravin Sawhney, editor of Force Magazine, the highly regard Indian monthly on national security and defense. Sawheny provided his interpretation of the decision to downselect European aircraft and…
06/01/2011: The Shifting Strategic Environment: A New Approach to Airlift and Tanking The United States has inherited and chosen to pursue the specialized aircraft route to airlift and tanking; Airbus Military has chosen a multi-mission path to providing for airlift and tanking capabilities for its customers. When the DOD chose the…
06/01/2011 by Richard Weitz With the appointments announced on Memorial Day, President Barack Obama has almost completed the transformation of his defense team from the senior leaders he initially inherited from President George W. Bush to a group of men that he selected. The new team looks well-prepared to deal…
05/29/2011 In a letter sent to Secretary of the USAF Michael Donely, Afghan Vet Congressman Allen West underscored that in his view, the terms of the downselect need to be respected. West calls for the competition to be determined on the non-developmental terms brokered and for the USAF to get…
