2014-01-11 Case 1: The Role of COIN Air Forces in Shaping Partnership Possibilities In the debate over the acquisition of the Light Attack Aircraft for the Afghan forces, a key opportunity to shape a 21st century option may be missed. A light attack aircraft, like the Super Tucano, when combined with…
2014-01-11 By Harald Malmgren During 2013 the Eurozone financial crisis seems to have dissipated. Optimistic words spoken by high level Eurocrats asserted that the EZ economy had turned the corner and was gradually recovering, with 1.0% GDP growth likely in 2014. ECB President Draghi said repeatedly that the ECB “would do…
2014-01-10 By Robbin Laird, Ed Timperlake and Murielle Delaporte As the United States faces the future and needs to come to terms with the past decade, what will be its military strategy? The answer to this question is not likely to come in briefing slides but in shaping concrete steps towards…
2014-01-10 The KC-130Js first arrived in the Pacific with the 1st Marine Air Wing in 2007. In 6 short years, the aircraft is enabling the USMC to provide long range assault support to the Ospreys and to support the shift to distributed operations in the Pacific. In our forthcoming interview…
2014-01-09 By Robbin Laird Japanese national security strategy is in evolution. In the most recent national security strategy, the Japanese government highlighted its latest iteration of what they called earlier “dynamic defense.” In an earlier piece, I wrote about the Japanese defense white paper of 2012 and highlighted the following:…
01/09/2014: Second Line of Defense’s Murielle Delaporte visited the SP-MAGTF Crisis Response in Morón Air Base, Spain a few days prior to their mission to South Sudan to extract US embassy personnel. The SP-MAGTF Crisis Response was formed over an 8-month period and first deployed to Europe for temporary basing…
2014-01-08 PALMFEX 1-14 is the culminating exercise for Infantry Officer Course 1-14. In addition to the normal training evolution, this will also provide a “Proof-of-Concept” long-range operation from 29 Palms California to Fort Hood Texas. This is a total distance of approximately 1,100 miles and will solidify the Marine Corps…
2014-01-07 By Robbin Laird and Ed Timperlake We visited the 33rd Fighter Wing during early September 2013 in the presence of Mike Wynne the 21ST Secretary of USAF. We collectively were given a professional briefing on the roll out of the F-35 to the three services, including visiting the Navy…
