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…

2015-01-20 Cameroon will this year receive artillery, missiles, armored trucks and other weapons from Russia, according to the country’s government. Russia’s ambassador Nikolay Ratsiborinskiy met with President Paul Biya on January 16 and discussed a number of issues. In a statement released after the meeting, the president’s office said that,…

2015-01-11  According to a December 20, 2014 story on the Italian Defense website, the Defense Minister’s visit last Fall to Egypt has led to a new Egyptian-Italian agreement on defense cooperation. Cooperation between Italy and Egypt is stronger. Today, in fact, Minister Pinotti and her Egyptian counterpart, Gen Sobhi, have…

2015-01-08 By Richard Weitz The new Russian military doctrine adopted shortly before Christmas [available on the Kremlin website makes somewhat clearer Russian leaders’ current threat perceptions and national security priorities. This iteration, which more accurately reflects Russian government statements, is the fourth since the Russian Federation became an independent country…

2015-01-03 As a new member of the Euro, Lithuania becomes the third Baltic state to join the pact. Clearly, this is about politics as well as economics, and joining is seen as a buffer to the Russians.  As noted in a Reuters piece published on December 31, 2014: Lithuania joined…

2014-12-23 By Richard Weitz In its newly published book, Brothers Armed: Military Aspects of the Crisis in Ukraine (East View Press, October 2014; by Vasiliy Kashin, Sergey Denisentsev, et al; edited by Colby Howard and Ruslan Pukhov), the experts at the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST), Moscow’s premier…

2014-12-13 by Richard Weitz This is the third and final part of the series on looking at the role of Kazakhstan with regard to nuclear security. Renewing Nuclear Energy During the past decade, Kazakhstan has dramatically increased its production and export of uranium. From 2001 to 2009, the country’s uranium…