2015-02-19 As part of the overall pressure which Russia is putting upon Europe as part of the Ukrainian campaign, Russian bomber incursions have been stepped up over the past few months. This means that European air forces are having to exercise air interception missions on a more regular basis than…
2015-02-16 By Kenneth Maxwell The secrets of HSBC were painfully revealed last week by the Washington based "International Consortium of Investigative Reporters" (ICIJ). Working with an international team of 140 journalists in 45 countries, the leaked documentation, reveals how HSBC's (Suisse) Private Bank, helped wealthy customers conceal billions of dollars of assets: Over 100,000 accounts worth almost US$…
2015-02-13 Ian Armstrong Temple University Department of Political Science Roughly five years since the Obama Administration initiated the U.S. “pivot” to Asia, the circumstances have aligned themselves to make for significant headway in the region. In light of recent events, there is an opportunity to strengthen the bilateral relations of…
2015-02-10 In its first deployment outside of Spain, Spanish air defense forces deploy to Turkey. Spanish troops joined NATO’s Patriot anti-ballistic missile deployment in Adana, Turkey on Monday (26 January 2015), replacing a Dutch unit which had been stationed there since January 2013. For the past two years, NATO’s Patriot…
2015-02-06 Secretary Hagel participated in the recent NATO ministerial at NATO headquarters, and spoke about how he saw the challenges facing the Alliance. He highlighted the cross-cutting impact of three threats: Russian seizure of Crimea and threats to the North; terrorism at home in the NATO territories; and combating ISIL…
2015-01-30 By Harald Malmgren The outcome of the 25 January Greek elections has been the emergence of a government led by Syriza, a new party which has committed itself to reopen all previous debt and fiscal policy commitments made by Greece to the European Union and the IMF since Greek…
2015-01-26 By Richard Weitz and Robbin Laird In his January 20 State-of-the-Union address, which focused overwhelmingly on domestic politics, President Barack Obama made a number of claims about the success of his foreign and defense policies. Among those policies cited were the following: Halting the advances of the Islamic State…
2015-01-20 Egypt is interested in procuring 20 Rafale fighter jets as well as two FREMM frigates from France in a potential deal worth nearly six billion euros. French newspaper La Tribune reported that France has offered two DCNS FREMM multi-mission frigates worth 1.8 billion euros and 20 Dassault Rafales worth…