2015-04-04 By Gulshan Luthra According to Admiral Harry Harris Jr., Commander of the US Pacific Fleet (PACFLT), the US Navy has a Congressional mandate to keep 11 aircraft carriers, and six of these should be in the two oceans along with some 200 ships by 2020. The first of the…
2015-03-23 A key part of the transition in Afghanistan on the military side is enabling the Afghan forces to use airpower in the fight against Islamic insurgency. The Super Tucano is coming from the United States, and training on Soviet-era helicopters is part of that transition. And Western forces maintaining…
2015-03-18 by Richard Weitz On March 10, Russia ended its participation in the Joint Consultative Group of the Treaty of Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. Moscow’s decision effectively formalizes Russia’s lack of interest in working within the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, and deepens concerns that the Kremlin will…
2015-03-06 By Harald Malmgren An historic February confrontation between the newly elected Syriza-led Greek government and the EU Commission, ECB, and IMF was averted by an ambiguous agreement to sort out differences over the period March to June. Initially, it appeared that Eurozone governments, led by German Finance Minister Schauble,…
2015-03-05 By Robbin Laird Recently, the Centro Studi Internazionali based in Rome published a report by Marco di Liddo and Gabriele Iacovino on Libya and the fluid situation in the country. Obviously, the general situation involving ISIL in the region, Egyptian reactions and the general dynamics of the region feed…
2015-03-11 With the return of direct defense considerations for the Balts and the Nordics, key states like Sweden are rethinking their approach to defense. In an interview in Copenhagen last year with Hans Tino Hansen, the founder and CEO of Risk Intelligence, the shift was the focus of attention: Question:…
2015-03-09 The Dutch have been an important contributor to working with the NATO and Arab partners in trying to role back the ISIS threat and to help in the stabilization of Iraq. On the Dutch Ministry of Defense website are a number of updates on Dutch engagements in the operations.…
2015-03-09 By Stephen Blank One year after the Russian occupation of Crimea we are beginning to see the see some of the consequences of the militarization of Russian policy. It is not an aberration but part of a larger policy.[i] The most recent examples of an expanded policy into the Mediterranean…
