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Russian Intelligence on the Rebound

12/05/2011
12/5/2011 by Richard Weitz Russian news media hinted darkly the foreign governments and their agent were seeking to influence yesterday’s parliamentary elections. The accusations of spies being involved in the election process were correct, but the spies were working for the Russian government. One of the duties of the Russian…

Operation Eastern Storm: Marines Make Big Bang Clearing IEDs

12/03/2011
12/03/2011: Marines with Engineer Support Company, 3rd Combat Engineer Battalion working in direct support of 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, to clear improvised explosive devices with mine-clearing line charges near Route 611 in Kajaki, which was laced with IEDs.Afghan residents had been forced to leave their homes due to the…

Presidential Visit to Australia: A Strategic Opportunity for Darwin and Australia?

12/02/2011
11/16/2011 By Robbin Laird and Ed Timperlake President Obama is focusing on the Pacific this week and he will go to Australia.  The President is scheduled to visit with the Australian Prime Minister, and Darwin, a port city, in the Northern Territories.  Darwin is the home of many things; among…

LM Global Vision Center: A SLD Site Visit

12/02/2011
[caption id="attachment_12920" align="alignleft" width="150" caption=" "][/caption] By Dr. Richard Weitz 12/02/2011 - Second Line of Defense was recently invited to participate in an open house for Lockheed Martin’s Affordable Innovation Technology Demonstration at the LM Global Vision Center in Arlington, Virginia. The demonstrations from the Lockheed Martin Global Training and…

US Joins Russia in Suspending Adherence to Conventional Weapons Treaty

12/02/2011
[caption id="attachment_12920" align="alignleft" width="150" caption=" "][/caption] By Dr. Richard Weitz 12/02/2011 - The United States announced recently that it would stop sharing data with Russia under the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty. In announcing the decision, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland noted that Russia had suspended its participation in…

Adversity and strategy: two sides of the same concept

12/01/2011
The goals the decision makers set themselves require building a strategy that takes account of the conditions for exercising their activities. When these conditions are contrary we talk about adversity. But would there need strategy if there was no adversity? Operational activities are never guided by the struggle against adversity,…

Afghan-Pakistan Border Incidents: The Underlying Problem

11/29/2011
11/27/2011 By Richard Weitz Pakistan and the United States have experienced their most serious incident along the Afghan-Pak border. According to Pakistani sources, confirmed by NATO, U.S. helicopters acting as part of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan attacked a military checkpoint in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, killing…

Putin Seeks Arctic Riches

11/27/2011
By Dr. Richard Weitz 11/27/2011 - Given the importance that Putin assigns to maintaining control of Russia’s energy resources, it is unsurprising that he has already outlined have ambitious goals to develop Arctic hydrocarbon resources in coming years. Geological experts believe that the Arctic holds more than 22% of the…