ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Local sources expect the intensification of Russia-led military operations in Syria in period between November 10 and November 22. The rumors relates to alleged requests to the Syrian military from the Russian Navy for carrying out flights and firing operations off Syria’s coast. According to reports, the Russian Navy task force, that includes the nuclear-powered battlecruiser Pyotr Velikiy and heavy aircraft-carrying missile cruiser Admiral Kuznetsov , will conduct flights and military strikes on November 10-15 and on November 17-22 in the eastern part of Mediterranean. There are no additional information about the planned operations. Western experts speculates that the Russian Navy task force will be involved in bombing ‘peaceful protesters’ from al-Qaeda and ISIS across Syria with special attention to the area of Aleppo city . The only reasonable idea in these expert opinions is that actions of the Russian Navy will likely be synchronized with the intensification of anti-terrorist

The structure of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces involved in the Raqqa campaign Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) fighters embed with US troops have been continuing the operation against ISIS terrorist group north of Raqqa. They anti-ISIS forces seized 3 villages without facing a significant resistance from ISIS. The so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), supported by the US-led coalition’s air power and special forces units, launched a military operation to liberate the ISIS-controlled city of Raqa on November 6. The first stage of the operation is aimed to isolate the ISIS-controlled city.The Kurdish YPG participates in the operation under the SDF brand. Turkey and Turkish-backed forces are not involved in the operation. YPG fighters and US soldiers side by side in the Raqqa offensive Even pro-US sources recognize that the Kurdish YPG is the main striking force of the SDF. However, they aruge that a 15,000-strong Liwa Thuwar Raqqa force consisting of mainly

China Growing Amphibious Capabilities   Written and produced by SF Team: Brian Kalman, Edwin Watson, Daniel Deiss The Chinese government has achieved a great deal in terms of modernizing and increasing the capabilities of its armed forces in the past two decades and they are quickly obtaining parity with their counterparts in the West. China has made great strides along the long road to rebuild its military, so that it can compete and excel in the modern battlespace. Much has been written about the fledgling PLAN aircraft carrier program. With one conventional aircraft carrier in service, the Liaoning, and a second carrier being built, China has obviously made the commitment to acquire at least a small aircraft carrier strike capability. Another important development, perhaps less sensational and headline catching than aircraft carriers, is the growth and modernization of the amphibious capabilities of bo

Iran has revealed two new-generation radar stations, which became further developments of the Meraj and Matla ul-Fajr series of radar units. Photo: YouTube / Persian_boy A demonstration of new developments in the field of the latest-generation radar stations of the Meraj and Matla ul-Fajr series took place in Iran . The latest developments of the Electronic Industries Organization of Iran were presented in the presence of Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan in the city of Shiraz, which is the main center of the Iranian electronics industry, where similar ceremonies are traditionally held. The Meraj-4 mobile three-coordinate radar station has already been showed, but for this time it was officially presented. It is assumed that the new radar station may become a part of the perspective air defense system of Iran. The Matla ul-Fajr-3 new mobile three-coordinate radiolocation station, which became a further development of the Iranian Matla ul-Fajr series of radar units , was also pre

One of the key sectors of Russian military modernization is its tank fleet, which still includes many unmodernized T-72B and T-80U tanks. In order to close the tank quality gap with NATO, Russia opted to upgrade the T-72B to the T-72B3 standard, a modernization that yielded a modern tank comparable to the T-90 at a fraction of the cost of buying a new T-90. The T-72B3 tank, which entered service in 2011 at the rate of about 200 a year and which became widely known thanks to the annual Tank Biathlon competitions, was intended to be a stop-gap measure until the T-14 of the Armata family became operational. According to the statements by the Uralvagonzavod, Russian procurement plans entailed the purchase of 2,000 T-14 MBTs. These plans appear to have been modified due to several factors which appeared in the last two years. The first was the crisis in Ukraine and the heightened state of conflict with NATO. The crisis raised the need for a truly modern MBT comparable to NATO’s tanks to bec

Written and produced by SF Team: J.Hawk, Daniel Deiss, Edwin Watson When the “end of history”, meaning the establishment of a permanent Western hegemony over the entire international system, was proclaimed in the early 1990s, it was not yet obvious how the pursuit of said hegemony would evolve over the succeeding decades. The “velvet” expansion of the 1990s into the post-Soviet vacuum gave way to the “iron fist” for which the 9/11 terror strikes provided the excuse and which meant invading whichever country Washington desired. However, the “iron fist” efforts in the post-9/11 world demonstrated West’s weakness , as sustaining operations in Iraq and Afghanistan proved too much for NATO. This failure ushered the post-“post-9/11″ world, and the “Arab Spring” became the first, though far from the only, demonstration of the evolved Western strategy which fuses the earlier approaches. The “velvet” aspect is still there: Western entities claim they are promoting “universal human values” whic

The recently released ethnographic map of the Iraqi city of Mosul, controlled by the ISIS terrorist group, explains the military developments in the area. This week Iraqi security forces (ISF) have easily sieged the Kurdish village of Gagjali in Mosul’s western outskirts (some sources even describe Gagjali as a Mosul neighborhood, but it is not true). This sucess allowed pro-government media outlets claim a rapid success in the operation to liberate Mosul and to ‘forecast’ significant advances in the coming days. But ‘signficant advances’ have not been made. This situation can be easily explained if somebody wants to take a look at the ethnographic situation in the city. In its propaganda ISIS aims mostly the Suni Arab population of Syria and Iraq. And Kurds are a minority among the terrorist group’s members. This is why some initial success by ISF is expected in the western Kurdish populated outskirts of the city. However, when the ISF reaches the first non-Kurdish (non-Assyrian or