Undated image of the BrahMos missile system.
Indian defense officials are set to export one of the world’s fastest anti-ship cruise missiles to Vietnam, according to several press reports. Read More
Allied forces practice amphibious assault near Ustka, northern Poland, on 17 June 2015 as part of BALTOPS 2015. NATO Photo
Summer is exercise season in the Baltic Sea region, and one of the largest ones is BALTOPS 16, which runs between June 3 and June 18, and ranges across a considerable portion of the Baltic Sea. Read More
Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier in 2012. Russian Ministry of Defense Photo
Starting next year, Russia’s only aircraft carrier will start a modernization maintenance period to upgrade its arresting gear and launching systems, according to a report this week from the Russian TASS news wire. Read More
Russian President Vladimir Putin
To understand what President Vladimir Putin may do in the future, the author of a new book on today’s Russia said Americans need to understand why and how he became a national hero by brutally suppressing separatists in Moscow’s second war in Chechnya. Read More
USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74) on May 20, 2016. US Navy Photo
There has been a lively debate in recent years over whether the appurtenance of American military might—the supercarrier—will be rendered irrelevant, even obsolescent, by the burgeoning anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) systems of the likes of China and Russia should war ever break out between them and Washington. This state of affairs is not helped by a glaring capability shortfall the U.S. Navy faces currently and in the foreseeable future: the lack of a carrier-based deep-strike aircraft due to the relatively short “legs” of its mainstay Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet attack fighter as well as the upcoming Lockheed Martin F-35C Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). Read More
U.S. Marines with 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment , Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force Crisis Response Central Command 16.2, participate in a live fire range during Exercise Eager Lion 16 at King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Center, Kingdom of Jordan on May 17, 2016. US Marine Corps Photo
The Marine Corps needs to push the envelope now during a so-called inter-war period – pursuing better technology, tighter international partnerships, higher manpower levels – to be ready whenever and wherever the next war breaks out, the assistant commandant of the Marine Corps said this week at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Exposition 2016. Read More
Russian T-72B Main Battle Tank in 2013. Russian Ministry of Defence Photo
In late April Russia shipped the first 20 of 50 T-72B tanks ordered by Nicaragua—causing a Cold War Back to the Future moment for Latin America watchers. Read More
Two Russian Sukhoi Su-24 attack aircraft fly over the USS Donald Cook (DDG-75) on Apr. 12, 2016. US Navy Photo
This piece is based on the recently released Atlantic Council Issue Brief “A Maritime Framework for the Baltic Sea Region” by Magnus Nordenman and Franklin D. Kramer.
The Baltic Sea region has emerged as one of the friction zones between an aggressive Russia and the United States and its NATO allies in northeastern Europe. Recently the USS Donald Cook (DDG-75) was twice buzzed by Russian Sukhoi Su-24 Fencers during an exercise in the Baltic Sea. The Cook incident is just the most recent of a string of close encounters between Russia and the West at sea and in the air over the Baltic Sea over the last two years. Read More
Retired U.S. Marine Gen. James Mattis
With a firm, “No, I haven’t given any thought” to running for president in answering the first question from the audience, retired Marine Gen. James Mattis returned to discussing the Middle East now that the nuclear agreement with Iran is in place. Read More
A Russian Sukhoi Su-24 attack aircraft makes a low altitude pass by the USS Donald Cook (DDG-75) on April 12, 2016. US Navy Photo
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The fly-by of the USS Donald Cook (DDG-75) in the Baltic Sea by Russian Sukhoi Su-24 Fencers on two separate occasions earlier this week serves as a dramatic reminder of the Baltic Sea region as a friction zone between Russia and the U.S. and its NATO allies. Read More
