On 21 July, the US Air Force published its Arctic Strategy. The release of the document itself is a first, since the Arctic has never been a separate area of focus for the US Air Force. The Defense Department’s 2019 Arctic Strategy contained a vision of the Arctic as a whole, and it talked about…
From Syria to Yemen in the Middle East, Libya to Somalia in Africa, Afghanistan to Pakistan in South Asia, an American aerial curtain has descended across a huge swath of the planet. Its stated purpose: combatting terrorism. Its primary method: constant surveillance and bombing — and yet more bombing. Its political benefit: minimizing the number…
The clash between India and Pakistan involving their respective air forces last week has led to claims and counter-claims from the two South Asian rivals. While India claimed its air force entered Pakistan air space in the early hours of February 26, Pakistan claimed a similar air attack on Indian positions a day later. However,…
Wikipedia tells us that “The Times Square Ball is a… prominent part of a New Year’s Eve celebration commonly referred to as the ball drop, where the ball descends 43 metres in 60 seconds… to signal the start of the new year.” It’s one of these silly things that is quite appealing in the spirit of…
In September, at the Air Force Association’s annual Space & Cyber Conference, Heather Wilson — Donald Trump’s Secretary of the U.S. Air Force — presented the Trump administration’s new roadmap for the U.S. Air Force: the historic expansion of the already, by far, largest air force in the world. Wilson identified the perceived context of the…
To observers of India’s defense environment, the country’s procurement process is a deeply bureaucratized labyrinth of incompetence and ineffectiveness. A 27-point internal memo prepared in 2017 by Minister of State for Defence Subhash Bhamre presented a sweeping denunciation of the tangled web of failures in Defence Ministry weapons-buying procedures and outputs. Most striking to note…
