A Russian Perspective on the Evolving Military Aviation Market

11/12/2011
11/12/2011 Aero3A News and Communications Agency has provided an interesting interview with Alexei Fedorov President of IRKUT Corporation which gives a sense of his views on the evolving military aviation marketspace.  These questions and responses were prepared for the forthcoming Dubai Air Show. What are perspectives of IRKUT Corp on…

Extending the Honeycomb: Transformation Re-visited

11/10/2011
11/10/2011 By Michael Wynne If one recalls the history of the transformation movement, it became embraced by then candidate Bush in his speech at the Citadel and then he followed through on the speech as president. The calls for a revolution in military affairs now became defense transformation. In all…

Iran Approaches the Nuclear Weapons Threshold

11/10/2011
11/09/2011 - by Richard Weitz The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has written its latest quarterly assessment of Iran’s nuclear program and things don’t look good. The report and other comments by the IAEA and its member governments indicate that Iran has made considerable progress In the three pillars required…

The Missing Coalition Perspective in the US Defense Spending Debate

11/09/2011
The Super Tucano Case   Photo credit: www.vectorsite.net   11/09/2011 - A significant irony in the current U.S. defense budgetary cost cutting debate is the absence of consideration for U.S. exports. Although the President expressed his vision of a significant expansion of exports, defense is not part of this vision.…

Turkey and the Kurdish Question

11/07/2011
11/06/2011 - by Richard Weitz A month ago, the International Crisis Group (ICG) released a report entitled, “Turkey: Ending The PKK Insurgency,” which offered sensible advice regarding how to make progress resolving Turkey’s Kurdish issue. The thrust of their recommendations was to move the struggle for Kurdish rights from the…

Return of the Russian Aircraft Carrier?

11/07/2011
11/06/2011 - by Richard Weitz The Russian media is now reporting that the Russian Navy leadership has recommended building two aircraft carrier battle groups by 2027. One would serve in the Northern Fleet (for deployment primarily in the Atlantic Ocean) and one with the Pacific Fleet. Navy leaders considered but…