Military & Security

Experts claim that the government of Qatar has portrayed the al-Nusra Front as a moderate fighting force to gain support from Sunni allies in an effort to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad.  WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The government of Qatar has portrayed the al-Nusra Front as a moderate fighting force to gain support …

France is desperately searching for what Reuters called “a face-saving compromise” with Moscow over the stalled deal for the delivery of two Mistral-class helicopter carriers built by the Western European nation for the Russian Navy. France has three options: deliver the warships, sell them to a third party and …

It may be seven years late and $160 billion over budget, but the F-35 fighter – the most expensive piece of fighting equipment in history – may finally make its official debut this summer.  After completing training exercises, the version of the jet designed for the US Marines appears likely …

The Commander of the Russian Air Force praised the Russian Ka-52 Alligator attack helicopter as the world’s best; the comments came during the aerial acrobatics contest “Aviadarts 2015” in the city of Voronezh, in the South-West of Russia.  “I think it is clear that this is the most …

The upcoming Victory Day parade on Red Square on May 9 is set not only to be the biggest in modern times in terms of troops and military hardware involved, but will also feature the largest number of brand new war machines on show to the public for …

Nikolas K. Gvosdev There have been two general reactions in the West to the first public glimpses of the T-14 Armata tank, the first completely post-Soviet Russian design for a main battle tank. The first is to view its claims—of greater speed, maneuverability, firepower and survivability vis-à-vis anything …

By Tom Nichols A few weeks ago, I directed Harvard Extension School’s “Crisis Game,” in which students had to play out a hypothetical Cold War crisis involving nuclear weapons. The realization that a crisis could escalate to nuclear war shocked younger students who had never given much thought …

James Holmes Methinks the U.S. Navy has contracted some weird allergy to fleet experimentation. Why else would service potentates retire a promising experimental aircraft like the X-47B unmanned combat air system demonstrator, or UCAS-D, in its infancy? Experimentation, of course, is the process of testing some tactic, concept, …

By James R. Holmes As weaponeers, budgeteers, and lawmakers wage their annual death match over the defense budget, here’s some input from the margins of Fight Club. And yes, I know the first and second rules of Fight Club. But no one obeys them inside the Beltway, and …