Section: The National Interest (USA)
Russia’s Scary S-400 Air Defense System Is Now Protecting the Skies Above Crimea
Dave Majumdar Security, Bad news. Russia is bolstering its anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities in Crimea with the addition of the potent S-400 Triumf air and missile defense system. The addition of the S-400—which can be armed with the 250-mile range 40N6—would afford Moscow the ability not only to keep the peninsula safe from attack,...
Time for a European Nuclear Deterrent?
Doug Bandow Security, Europe Instead of expecting the United States to risk a nuclear exchange to protect Europe, the Europeans should take over that risk. After spending a quarter century treating NATO as an international social club to which every reasonably civilized European nation should belong, the alliance has begun to focus again on its...
Russia Returns to Afghanistan
Arif Rafiq Politics, Eurasia Russia could ally with China and Pakistan to create an alternative bloc to the U.S-led coalition. Russia is a great power that retains muscle memory (and a strategic arsenal) from its past superpowerdom. In the Ukraine and Syria, Russia has challenged the United States—its former peer and a hesitant hegemon in...
Ukraine’s Plan to Manufacture U.S. M16 Combat Rifles Hits a Snag
Nolan Peterson Security, Ammo seems to be the problem. KYIV, Ukraine—Kalashnikov assault rifles are among the most iconic symbols of the Soviet military. Weapons such as the AK-47, the AKM, the AK-74, and the AK-103 are ubiquitous reminders of the Red Army’s legacy among the modern militaries of former Warsaw Pact countries and Soviet...
Russia Had Plans to Build a ‘Super’ Aircraft Carrier (But Ran into a Super Big Problem)
Paul Richard Huard Security, The Soviet Empire collapsed. ‘Ulyanovsk’ Would Have Been the Soviets’ Supercarrier: Russia scrapped the ship in the ’90s Had she ever sailed, the Soviet supercarrier Ulyanovsk would have been a naval behemoth more than 1,000 feet long, with an 85,000-ton displacement and enough storage to carry an...
How Russia’s Military Plans to Counter the Pentagon’s Drone Swarms
Samuel Bendett Security, If anything, Russian military is a good student of new practices and technologies. Over the past decade, Russian armed forces and Russian defense industry have made strides in developing, testing and fielding domestically produced unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs). While lagging behind their Western and East Asian...
This Is Everything the U.S. Army Wants for the Wars of the Future
Joseph Trevithick Security, Armored vehicles, helicopter engines and lifesaving medical tech. In 2014, having withdrawn from Iraq and looking to end its official combat mission in Afghanistan, the U.S. Army started to assess the impact of more than a decade of almost exclusively fighting insurgents and terrorists. In that time, it had trained its...
What Trump Should Understand about China and North Korea
Doug Bandow Security, Asia While Beijing does not want a nuclear Pyongyang, it wants collapse and chaos even less. In barely two weeks Americans will learn whether Donald Trump is as smart as he claims. He triumphed over the odds to win the presidency and most of his staff picks so far look serious. But his tweets continue to raise some...
Would a Fillon Presidency Overturn France’s Russia Policy?
David Cadier Security, Europe A French U-turn on Russia appears unlikely but some changes can be expected. After winning the conservatives’ primary elections on November 27, François Fillon is now best positioned to be the next president of France. Although political forecasts are like horoscopes these days, his victory over the far...
Russia Sanctions: What Will Congress Do?
Nikolas K. Gvosdev Security, Europe Are enough Republicans in Congress interested in constraining Trump’s freedom of action on Russia, and would an outgoing Obama administration be willing to use its last “lame duck” days in office to sign such legislation? Having assessed the evidence presented to it by the intelligence...
