Category: Blogs

Turkey Strongly Leaning Toward Buying Chinese Missile Defense System

By Burak Ege Bekdil, Defense News

From Burak Ege Bekdil, Defense News:  Turkey is strongly leaning toward adopting a Chinese long-range anti-missile and air defense system, Turkish procurement officials said, even though it may be impossible to integrate the system with its existing NATO architecture.

Too Many Archdukes, Too Many Bullets

By Harlan Ullman

Ninety-nine years ago this Friday, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his pregnant wife Sofia were gunned down in Sarajevo by a 19-year old Bosnian Serb nationalist named Gavrilo Princip. The assassinations quickly provoked a crisis that more quickly erupted into world war. Ironically, many of the elites in Europe believed that an early 20th-century version of […]

Top News: Egypt’s Military Redeploys Across Country Days Ahead of Mass Anti-Morsi Protests

Egypt’s military on Wednesday brought in reinforcements of troops and armor to bases near Egyptian cities ahead of June 30 protests planned by the opposition to force the Islamist president out, security officials said.  

Egypt’s Sisi Threads the Needle

Egypt’s army has gone to great lengths to distance itself from the political arena since President Mohamed Morsi wrested power from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) almost a year ago. Eighteen months of SCAF-rule left the army’s reputation tarnished with accusations of human rights abuses on the part of the military itself, […]

US Official Defends Spending on NATO Missile Shield, Under GOP Attack

By Rachel Oswald, Global Security Newswire

From Rachel Oswald, Global Security Newswire:  A senior State Department official on Friday said that a ballistic missile shield being established in Europe would contribute to defending the U.S. homeland

Independent Scotland ‘Faces Dilemma Between Trident and NATO’

By Simon Johnson, Telegraph

From Simon Johnson, Telegraph: A detailed study of defence in a separate Scotland predicted the SNP would face an “unpalatable dilemma” between keeping Trident submarines on the Clyde and being refused entry to Nato.

Obama in Africa: Take Two

By Sam Fishman

Africa is occupying a larger space on the world stage. Security threats posed by new Islamic extremist groupings, the continent’s rapid GDP growth, and a bullish China blowing past the US in bilateral trade suggest that the continent will rise higher on the presidential agenda.  Presidents Bush and Clinton took a special interest in Africa, […]

Britain’s Losing the Global Race

By Julian Lindley-French

British Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance Minister) George Osborne said that Britain must win “the global race,” which is probably a political metaphor for reducing deficit spending and increasing productivity. At the crux of his efforts to claw back a further £11.5bn of savings have been further cuts to the British armed forces. This coming […]

An ICC Intervention for Syria?

By J. Trevor Ulbrick and Kip Hale

 Syria’s relentless civil war has taken a dramatic turn for the worse. The White House recently declared that Syrian government forces had used chemical weapons multiple times against rebel forces, a war crime in and of itself. Militias loyal to Bashar al-Assad have stepped up massacres of civilians and prisoners of war perceived as allied […]