ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Written by  Alexander Mercouris ; Originally appeared at  The Duran The  US Nuclear Posture Review  is a seminal document, not just because of the nuclear weapons build up it speaks of – worrying though that is – but because it represents a formal admission by the US that the so-called ‘unipolar moment’ – the period after the end of the Cold War when the US enjoyed unchallenged global dominance – is over. So far from being the world’s unchallenged and unchallengeable ‘hyperpower’ and world hegemon, the US admits that it is now once again just one of three Great Powers – the US, Russia and China – albeit that it still considers itself to be the strongest of the three. The Review admits this unambiguously.  One of its chapters is straightforwardly entitled “The Return of Great Power competition”. This chapter, the single most important in the whole document, has this to say Since 2010 we have seen the return of Great Power competition. To varying deg...

Illustrative image On February 8, an unnamed Yemeni officer told the Yemeni al-Masirah TV that the Yemeni Air Defense Force and the Missile Forces [both allied with the Houthis] conducted a joint operation and destroyed a MIM-104 Patriot PAC-3 air defense system of the Saudi-led coalition in the coastal town of Mocha in the southwestern province of Taiz. The Russian news outlet Sputnik news revealed that the Yemeni Air Defense Force attacked the Saudi Patriot PAC3 system with an unspecified “attack Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)” while the Yemeni Missile Forces targeted the system with an unspecified “ballistic missile”. Experts believe that the Yemeni Air Defense used a suicide UAV to target the Radar of the Patriot PAC-3 system.  A report released by Conflict Armament Research (CAR) group  in March 2017 revealed that the Houthis had attempted to attack the radar of a UAE Patriot system deployed in Yemen with a suicide UAV named “Qasef-1”. This UAV is a copy of the I...

F-16 crash site UPDATE:  One of the Israeli pilots was severely wounded. *** On February 10, the Syrian Air Defense Forces shot down an Israeli F-16 warplane after it had carried out airstrikes on what the Israeli side described as Iranian facilities from which a UAV was allegedly launched to the Israeli-held area. According to the Syrian state-run media, the Israeli airstrikes hit “one of the military bases in the central area [of Syria], and the army air defense confronted the aggression and hit more than one aircraft.” [Local sources say that the Israeli strikes allegedly targeted the T4 Airbase, but this still has to be confirmed.] The Israeli military confirmed that one F-16 was shot down, but said that the pilots survived the incident. Jonathan Conricus @LTCJonathan IDF has targeted the Iranian control systems in Syria that sent the # UAV into Israeli airspace. Massive Syrian Anti-Air fire, one F16 crashed in Israel, pilots safe. # Iran i...