By Robbin Laird The French Air Force (FAF) is one of the most active Air Forces in the Western World. They have had significant demand on the force and have been stressed through a continual flow of operations. They are a nuclear-armed Air Force and their focus on Quick Reaction…
By Stephen Blank When the U.S. government announced it was withdrawing from the INF treaty due to Russian violations of the treaty that are now universally acknowledged, a flood of critical article immediately ensued. However, virtually none of those articles mentioned Russian nuclear strategy or policy, reflecting these commentators’ ongoing…
By Robbin Laird This year’s International Fighter Conference held in Berlin provided a chance for the participants and the attendees to focus on the role of fighters in what we have been calling the strategic shift, namely, the shift from the land wars to operating in higher intensity operations against…
By Robbin Laird I spent a good deal of the 1980s traveling within and dealing with German security issues. A key challenge in the early part of the decade was the Euromissile challenge and working common positions among European partners and with the United States to deal with Soviet intrusions…
Trident Juncture 2018 is a major NATO exercise which is focused on Northern Tier defense. It also is an exercise for the Norwegians in mobilizing their society to deal with crises in the region in which NATO forces would be called upon to operate from Norwegian soil. A key part…
The liberal democracies are facing a significant strategic shift from a primary focus on the counter-terrorism and land wars in the Middle East focus to one involving peer competitors and the threat of force-on-force direct defense challenges. And this is unfolding in a post-post Cold War world in which the…
By India Strategic Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi received the crew of Strategic Strike Nuclear Submarine (SSBN) INS Arihant Nov 5, 2018. The submarine recently returned from its first deterrence patrol, completing the establishment of the country’s survivable nuclear triad. Stressing the significance of the successful deployment of INS Arihant…
By J. Paul de B. Taillon Will the international world order erode? Will value systems drift apart? Will globalization be stopped in its tracks? Just 10 years ago, in 2008, the Western world was experiencing the worst financial crisis since the Black Thursday crash of 29 October 1929. Through the financial storms that…
