* US military leaders submitted a new proposal to the White House keeping 10,000 troops in Afghanistan until 2015, but then dropping to just a few hundreds by 2016. * Israel and Kazakhstan signed a defense cooperation agreement. Among Central Asian countries, Israel...
* India's DRDO announced [PDF] the 3rd successful test launch of its 4,000 km-range (2,500 miles) Agni-IV ballistic missile. Agni 5 missiles with 25% more range have been recently tested too. Lasers to Cut Anti-Rocket Defense Costs * RAFAEL is unveiling "Iron Beam," a...
* Press reports seem to confirm ongoing rumors that China is building its 2nd aircraft carrier in Dalian. * China may give itself more leeway than Western countries in getting cozy with authoritarian regimes, but that is not working out so well. * USPACOM commander...
* General Robert Cone, commanding general of US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), wants the fact that US troops were not exactly greeted with rose petals in Iraq to sink in. The integration of "engagement" and consideration for "human terrain" skills into...
Dutch Leopard 2A6(click to view full) What's left of the Dutch tank fleet has been sold to Finland. The Finnish Minister of Defence just approved the proposal to buy 100 Leopard 2A6NL main battle tanks, plus spare parts for 10 years, combat simulators, maintenance...
Crazy Like a Fox * So what has Christine Fox, a former director of the Pentagon's cost assessment office, been up to since she was recently appointed as acting deputy defense secretary? Writing a memo to cancel a significant part of the LCS buy, it turns out. We'll...
* China has been repeatedly calling for the establishment of a "new type of major country relationship" with the US. The CSIS think tank explains [PDF] what that's supposed to mean, and the risks such phraseology entails. * The US House Armed Services Committee had a...
* Anthony Cordesman from the CSIS think tank couches in strong terms the case that al Qaeda's resurgence in Iraq is largely the result of Prime Minister Maliki's violent, corrupt and sectarian attempts to consolidate power. * Ted Galen Carpenter from the Cato...
* T. X. Hammes, a research fellow at the US National Defense University, asks in the National Interest: "[T]he discussion of military strategy [in response to Chinese expansionism] should force the deeper and more important discussion of whether or not the United...