Belgium is a key member of the European Participating Air Forces (EPAF) group which has flown F-16s for three decades. Denmark, Belgium, Norway, the Netherlands and Portugal are the members of the EPAF. In a recent visit to Denmark, a key leader of the Royal Danish Air Force explained the importance…
by Kenneth Maxwell Dante's "Inferno", the 14th century epic poem, where Hell is nine concentric circles of torment located within the earth. It is the most appropriate analogy for the seriousness of the national dilemmas and the international challenges that confront us To start at the outer circle of Dante's…
By P Venkata Rao New Delhi. India and Russia are friends for a long time and the trajectory that a few years ago appeared to be flat took an upward shift October 5 with the successful visit of President Vladimir Putin to India. On the face of it, the visit…
Important Defence Agreements to be inked during President Putin’s visit: Ambassador Varma By Vinay Shukla Moscow. Even as the spectre of US CAATSA sanctions looms over significant arms contracts with Moscow, India expects the signing of “important” defence deals during President Vladimir Putin’s New Delhi visit on October 4-5 for…
By Richard Weitz India was de facto part of the recent U.S. decision to impose sanctions on the Chinese Defense Ministry’s Equipment Development Department, and its director, for their purchasing of advanced Russian weapons. Section 231 of the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act(CAATSA) of 2017 mandates penalties for entities…
By Robbin Laird I first reported that the Aussie-Sub deal was facing significant negotiating challenges last month. I discovered this when focusing on Collins class and its sustainment and modernization efforts and then discussed the dynamics since 2016 of the new sub contract. In discussions in Australia, I learned that…
The Japanese Self Defense force rarely mentions the operations of their submarines, short of participating in an exercise with the United States. But in a recent announcement by the Japanese, they highlighted that the Kuroshio, the helicopter carrier Kaga and two other destroyers, the Inazuma and Suzutsuki, conducted an antisubmarine…
Clearly, Europe is in the throes of fundamental change. Clusters of states such as the Northern European states are sorting out paths forward within an evolving European context, while Brexit and the crisis of integration of Europe along the lines set in the 1990s atrophies. Clearly, a new nationalism has…