A Photo Update on the KC-30A: Preparing for Tanker 2.0

01/25/2018
2018-01-20 by Robbin Laird In March, I will be back in Australia and will be writing the latest report for The Williams Foundation, with this year's seminar year starting with a look at the key challenge of shifting from the land wars to higher tempo and higher intensity operations. I…

Inside the New Trump Administration National Defense Strategy

01/23/2018
2018-01-19 The Trump Administration released today the new national defense strategy and as our colleague Colin Clark, Editor of Breaking Defense, noted, it is a significant change from that of the Obama Administration. “The Trump Administration’s first National Defense Strategy is a vigorously and well written document that marks a major…

Australian Hawkei Vehicles to Iraq for Test and Evaluation

01/23/2018
1/23/18:Two PMV-L Hawkei vehicles have arrived in the Middle East Region to conduct operational test and evaluation trials in Iraq. Soldiers from Task Group Taji 6 will utilise these vehicles throughout the trial period which will assess the sustainability of the vehicles. The vehicles were transported from Australia’s main operating…

Operating in Contested Urban Environments: The Aussies Look at New Technologies

01/22/2018
1/22/18: The 2017 Contested Urban Environment Strategic Challenge (CUE17), a multi-national defence technology activity led by Defence Science and Technology, was held in Adelaide from 20 November to 1 December 2017. [maxgallery id="103874"] The purpose of CUE17 was to investigate new and emerging technologies that can improve the intelligence, surveillance…

Changing Political Dynamics in the United States: Trump as a Political Icebreaker

01/21/2018
2018-01-11 By Harald Malmgren The election of Donald Trump is still reverberating throughout the American political system. Rather than being an aberration which the professional political class might never wish to see repeated, President Trump’s election was a bold, powerful shock to the long-prevailing, deeply entrenched political system in Congress,…

Peaceful Denuclearization Means DPRK Regime Can Survive

01/21/2018
2018-01-18 By Danny Lam The United States and Canada just concluded a meeting of the United Nations Command Sending States and allies in Vancouver, British Columbia. "Sending states" refers to the belligerents acting under the authority of the United Nations that originally signed the Korean Armistice Agreement of 1953 with…

21st Century Military Power: Changing the Hard and Soft Power Calculus

01/19/2018
2018-01-12 By Robbin Laird The US military has been focused along with core allies in fighting counter-terrorism land wars for more than a decade, which represents a defining generation of combat experience for the joint, and coalition force. There has been significant combat learning in shaping new approaches to counter-terrorism…