Steel and sea issues dominate U.S.-China dialogue

The recent Strategic and Economic Dialogue highlighted the importance of steel production and the South China Sea in U.S.-China relations.

Between 6-7 June, the U.S. and China were engaged in the 8th Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED). The meeting, established by President Obama and former Chinese president Hu Jintao in 2009, has notoriously failed to result in agreements. As a consequence, the forum is widely considered consultative, at best.

France could lose billions in canceled Mistral warship deal with Russia

After initial negotiations, France and Russia failed to agree on the amount Paris has to compensate for refusing to deliver two Mistral vessels amid the Ukrainian crisis. France needs to find a viable solution to preserve its reputation as a reliable business partner.

In late May, it became evident that initial negotiations failed to settle the diplomatic spat between Moscow and Paris over the delivery suspension of two Mistral-class helicopter carriers.

China’s Military Blueprint: Bigger Navy, Bigger Global Role

China laid out its military strategy in its first-ever defense white paper, promising not to hit first, but vowing to strike back hard if attacked in a world full of what it sees as potential threats.

European War Games: Responses to Russian Military Drills

A Dutch helicopter participates in a NATO anti-submarine exercise in the North Sea on May 4. (MARIT HOMMEDAL/AFP/Getty Images)

Several events have coincided to demonstrate the dynamic, if not guarded, relationship between Russia and the Nordic and Baltic states. Ten NATO countries and Sweden launched a two-week planned exercise in the North Sea on May 4 to improve their anti-submarine warfare capabilities. On the same day, Finland — not a NATO member — began mailing letters to about 900,000 reservists informing them of their roles in a potential crisis situation. Meanwhile, Sweden's Foreign Ministry formally complained to Russian authorities that Russian navy ships were disrupting cable-laying work in waters between Sweden and Lithuania, the latest in a series of formal complaints over Russia's activity in the area. Concurrently, the Swedish and Lithuanian foreign ministers met with Moldova's pro-West leaders in Chisinau.

Nordic Defense Cooperation to counter Russian threat

The five Nordic defense ministers announced last week the beginning of extensive military cooperation between their countries, arguing that Russia is currently the biggest threat to European security.

In a declaration published last week, defense ministers for Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland announced the beginning of extensive military cooperation between the Nordic countries.

China’s defense budget 2015: Beyond Official Explanation

China’s State Council spokesperson Fu Ying announced (Beijing, March 03) that China’s defense budget for 2015 will increase by 10% to 889 billion Yuan (approx US $ 142 billion). This is less than 12.2% increase in 2014, and 10.7% in 2013.

China continues to insist that its defense expenditure still fails to fill the wide gap between its arms and equipment and that of some foreign countries. The US military budget for 2016 was recently signed by President Barack Obama at US $ 581 billion, while the Russian budget for 2016 is estimated at US $ 93.9 billion. Japan and India come way behind, in the range of US $ 42 billion and US $ 22 billion (approx) respectively.

F-35s to Replace Troops in Europe as Russia Deterrent

 The Pentagon announced Thursday, Jan. 8, that as part of its response to Russian aggression, it would dispatch two squadrons of next-generation fighter jets to the United Kingdom to replace military personnel currently being withdrawn. The only problem is that these jets are far from battle-ready.

The Defense Department said it plans to base two squadrons of Lockheed Martin’s long-delayed F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter in the United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force (RAF) Lakenheath by 2020, even as it wraps up operations at the RAF’s Mildenhall air base, a longtime home for U.S. forces.

Picking Up the Pieces at the Pentagon

President Barack Obama in late August admitted that he had no "strategy yet" on how to deal with the Islamic State. Obama might say something similar now to explain why Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was pushed out or what the administration hopes to achieve with this change in Pentagon leadership.

Although the White House portrayed Hagel's departure as a usual cabinet change post a midterm election that resulted in Democrats losing their Senate majority, unnamed administration officials have said that Hagel wasn't up to the task of leading the fight against the militant group, also known as ISIS and ISIL, that now controls broad parts of Iraq and Syria.

The Pentagon's Budget Dilemma

Pentagon has shared with Congress new details about its plan to train and equip vetted members of the Syrian opposition to fight the Islamic State in hopes of finally securing funding for the effort.

With an initial tranche of $225 million, the Defense Department aims to train the first classes of Syrian rebels, each of which will have 300 fighters, according to a reprogramming request signed by the Pentagon's chief financial officer, Mike McCord.

India’s Promising Israel Defense Ties: Stalled on scandals, a missile deal has given the defense relationship a shot in the arm.

Image Credit: REUTERS/Babu

In what could be considered a major breakthrough for Indo-Israeli defense ties, under the newly installed Bharatiya Janata Pary (BJP) government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India will finally get its much-needed Barak-1 missile, manufactured by the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). This is a significant step for the new government in New Delhi, particularly considering the depleted defensive capabilities of Indian warships. With delivery scheduled for December 2015, fourteen ships that presently lack missile systems will be outfitted with the Barak-1.

The challenge to the West: Restoring European deterrence

Mutually Assured Destruction, with its overtones of Dr Strangelove, was never a popular strategy in Western societies: the idea that NATO and the Warsaw Pact could wipe out human life many times over seemed immoral to many people. The acronym ‘MAD’ did not help. But MAD kept Europe peaceful, if nervous, through most of the Cold War.



 The world of 2014 is very different from that of the 1950s, when John von Neumann, mathematician and game theorist, came up with the both concept and the term Mutually Assured Destruction. NATO leaders at their summit in Wales on September 4th and 5th, and EU foreign ministers when they meet on September 29th, need to think about an expanded concept of deterrence, covering military, economic and other measures, and how to use it to restore stability in Europe.

Russia-China defense cooperation major factor for world security

According to the Voice of Russia, cooperation of Russia's and China's defense ministries is an important factor for security in the region and the whole world, Russian President Vladimir Putin said after talks with China's President Xi Jinping.

"As far as military-technical cooperation contacts and contacts between defense ministries are concerned, such cooperation is a major factor for stability and security in the region and around the world," Putin said. He noted joint projects in civil aircraft building. "We have good prospects and good projects for creating a wide-body plane and heavy civilian helicopter," Putin said. Cooperation in the automobile industry was developing well, too, he said.

Ukraine, short on military budget, starts fundraising drive

Ukraine’s new government inherited an army so bereft of modern equipment and training that when Russian troops entered Crimea and agitators stormed government offices in eastern Ukraine, the country proved helpless to protect its borders and citizens.

View Photo Gallery — Pro-Russian militants refuse to leave Ukrainian government buildings: Pro-Russian­ militants, boasting that they do not take orders from diplomats in Washington or Moscow, refused to end their armed occupation of a dozen government buildings across eastern Ukraine on Friday, upending hopes for a quick end to the standoff.

The corruption that had darkened all the nation’s institutions had provoked demonstrators to stand their ground in Kiev until the old leaders fled. But the depth of the damage took the country by surprise when the Crimean Peninsula was easily lost to Russian annexation last month, revealing a military profoundly weakened by theft and neglect.

U.S. Defense Policy in the Wake of the Ukrainian Affair

Ever since the end of the Cold War, there has been an assumption that conventional warfare between reasonably developed nation-states had been abolished. During the 1990s, it was expected that the primary purpose of the military would be operations other than war, such as peacekeeping, disaster relief and the change of oppressive regimes. After 9/11, many began speaking of asymmetric warfare and "the long war." Under this model, the United States would be engaged in counterterrorism activities in a broad area of the Islamic world for a very long time. Peer-to-peer conflict seemed obsolete.

There was a profoundly radical idea embedded in this line of thought. Wars between nations or dynastic powers had been a constant condition in Europe, and the rest of the world had been no less violent. Every century had had systemic wars in which the entire international system (increasingly dominated by Europe since the 16th century) had participated. In the 20th century, there were the two World Wars, in the 19th century the Napoleonic Wars, in the 18th century the Seven Years' War, and in the 17th century the Thirty Years' War.

Congress cuts U.S. military and development aid for Afghanistan

With no perceptible opposition from the Obama administration, Congress has quietly downscaled Washington’s ambitions for the final year of the Afghan war, substantially curtailing development aid and military assistance plans ahead of the U.S. troop pullout.

As congressional appropriators put the final touches on a huge spending bill in recent weeks, they slashed Afghanistan development aid by half and barred U.S. defense officials from embarking on major new infrastructure projects. After making a bid last year for $2.6 billion worth of “critical” capabilities such as mobile strike vehicles for Afghan security forces, the Pentagon agreed it could do with just 40 percent of what it had sought.

Not flashy but effective: Closer EU co-operation in defence investments

This month, European leaders will discuss how to strengthen EU military co-operation. It is the first time that defence has been on the European Council’s agenda since 2008 and EU officials had hoped the member-states would unveil bold initiatives to stem the deterioration of their armed forces. But governments remain wary of ambitious joint efforts in defence. So the best that can be hoped for is that the Council will endorse EU military reforms which are relatively modest, but easier for member-states to support. One of these should be closer co-operation in regulating private investments in European defence companies – somewhat technical and unspectacular but nonetheless useful.

European governments acknowledge that the case for EU defence collaboration is even stronger today than it was when France and the UK launched the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) fifteen years ago: the US will not always be able or willing to help Europeans stem violence in their neighbourhood, so European states must be capable of upholding regional security alone. And EU countries could save money through closer co-operation amongst their armed forces, and by more integration between their fragmented defence markets.