Military & Security

JACK MURPHY, SOFREP There are a lot of puzzled expressions on people’s faces when it comes to the subject of the late Osama Bin Laden and why the White House has not authorized the release of any pictures of the body. Photographs and video were released of Saddam …

  BILL GERTZ, THE WASHINGTON FREE BEACON Shamil Zhumatov/ReutersRussian Tu-95 bombers fly during a joint Kazakh-Russian military exercise at Otar military range, some 150km (93 miles) west of Almaty, October 3, 2008. Two Russian nuclear-capable bombers intruded into the U.S. air defense zone near Alaska last week in …

PAMELA ENGEL Business Insider The head of the Islamic State is still incapacitated from a spinal injury, and the new leader of the terrorist group is intent on “fighting back” against Europe, according to a new report by Martin Chulov in The Guardian. Kareem Shaheen at The Guardian …

By: Mary Habeck In my first post on the quarrel between al-Qaeda and ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham), I laid out the depth of the problem facing al-Qaeda. In this post, I’ll take a brief look back at the origins and root causes of the …

Alexander Korolkov After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Navy was degraded and to all intents and purposes became nothing more than a coastal fleet. Today, due to limited economic resources, Russia has to focus on protecting its longest coastline – the Arctic. With this in …

BY NABEEL KHOURY President Barack Obama, in his interview with Tom Friedman on April 5, was at his intellectual best. He convincingly explained the framework agreement with Iran while stressing serious strategic disagreement with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamene’i. Tom Friedman, in turn, was at his diplomatic best, …

Fenella McGerty, Senior Defence Budgets Analyst, IHS Aerospace, Defence & Security – IHS Jane’s Defence Weekly Key points: France’s announcement goes even further than Germany’s plan to increase spending by EUR1.9 billion over 2015-2016. While many countries in Eastern Europe have already increased spending, we may finally be …

Zachary Keck The Buzz China has conducted the first test flight of a new, upgraded version of its J-11 fighter jet. According to Russian media outlets, which cited unnamed Chinese reports, on Wednesday the People’s Liberation Army Air Force conducted the first flight tests of its J-11D fighter …

Kyle Mizokami The Russian Army is back. Like a bear awakening from hibernation, the Russian Ground Forces are shrugging off decades of neglect with a rearmament program designed to make it once again the most powerful army in Eurasia. Russia’s ten-year armament program, scheduled to run through 2020 …