ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

China’s government has been relatively vocal in transforming itself into a serious threat against the West — by modernizing its military in anticipation of future wars with Washington. It it therefore not surprising when the official  Xinhua  news agency reports that China will increase its defense budget by 8.1 percent in 2018, up marginally from last year’s 7 percent. China has undoubtedly given America’s military-industrial complex and clueless politicians in Washington a stern message,  by increasing its defense budget to the highest levels in more than three years, even as the country insists it does not mean harm. According to the annual budget report, submitted to the first session of the 13th National People’s Congress Monday, the 2018 defense budget will be 1.11 trillion yuan (approximately 175 billion U.S. dollars). In 2017, the country spent roughly 1.02 trillion yuan (approximately 161.87 billion dollars) on its military budget in 2017, o...

The Sudan and the countries of the African Horn are not as well known as the Syria, Irak, Yemen or Libya as a springboard for confrontations, but no less important, and for the problems of water distribution of the Nile it is key. The alliance of the UAE and Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), Israel, the USA and other external players confront each other in Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti and such states of the African interior as Uganda and Ethiopia, where Islamist terrorist groups and Iran are active. The events taking place in the region are described based on materials from the Middle East Institute (MEI) expert A. Bystrov. Confusion in Somalia On January 3, the Somali Prime Minister Hasan Ali Khayre, upon the recommendation of President Mohamed Abdullahi “Farmajo” Mohamed, dismissed the ministers of Foreign Affairs Yusuf Garaad Omar, of Internal Affairs A.F. Sayyid and Trade K.A. Duale. They were replaced by the Somali Ambassador to the U.S. Ahm...

A screenshot from the video showing Avangard missile system The Russian Defense Ministry has signed a contract on the serial production of the state of the art hypersonic missile system Avangard, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov said on March 12 in an interview with the defense ministry’s newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda. The Russian state-run news agency TASS provided more details on the advanced weapon system ( source ): Maneuvering warhead According to open sources, the guided hypersonic warhead (the spacehead) of the Avangard intercontinental ballistic missile system is codenamed 15Yu71. It was developed as part of the R&D work “4202” by specialists of the Military and Industrial Corporation “Research and Production Association of Machine-Building” (the town of Reutov) under the guidance of Chief Designer Pavel Sudyukov. Russia’s Federal Space Agency acted as the customer for the R&D work “4202.” Compared to traditional warheads of intercontinental ba...