A Joint Task Force consisting of up to four ships, maritime patrol aircraft and more than 1,200 personnel from the Australian Defence Force are deployed on Indo-Pacific Endeavour 2019, a series of key engagement activities with Australia’s regional neighbours. Running from March to May, Indo-Pacific Endeavour 2019 is geared towards…
By Richard Weitz Last month, Second Line of Defense attended the eighht annual Moscow Conference on International Security (MCIS-2019), which met from April 24-26. The Russian capital was surprisingly warm, with the temperature higher than in Washington, but the frigidity of the Russian-U.S. relationship was pervasive at the conference. The…
By Robbin Laird Clearly, Europe is in crisis. In my own view, it faces a double constitutional crisis. Brexit is an internal constitutional crisis in the "United" Kingdom and poses a constitutional crisis within the European "Union" which is itself undergoing significant regional devolution. The continental European economies are facing…
U. S. Marines with Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 232, Marine Aircraft Group (MAG) 11, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, perform maintenance checks on an F/A-18C Hornet during Red Flag-Alaska (RF-A) 19-1 at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, Oct. 5. RF-A 19-1 is a series of U.S. Pacific Air Force commander-directed…
A Joint Task Force consisting of up to four ships, maritime patrol aircraft and more than 1,200 personnel from the Australian Defence Force are deployed on Indo-Pacific Endeavour 2019, a series of key engagement activities with Australia’s regional neighbours. Running from March to May, Indo-Pacific Endeavour 2019 is geared towards…
An F-35B Lightning II attack jet flies alongside a KC-130J tanker aircraft attached to a refueling drogue during an aerial refueling mission above the East China Sea, Oct. 23, 2018. The F-35B belongs to Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 (VMFA-121) and the KC-130J belongs to Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron…
By Robbin Laird The Trump Administration's National Security Strategy underscored the return of great power competition. By so doing, they did focus much more on the world as it is, rather than the last Administration which focused more on the world one might wish existed. But neither really capture the…
By Robbin Laird Two broad findings can be drawn from my five years of visiting Australia and working with the Australian Defence Force. The first is that they are very focused on building out as integrated a force as they are capable of doing, and that means not only leveraging…
