ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

The Pentagon says that Russia is building an unmanned “drone” submarine that will be capable of delivering large-scale nuclear weapons against U.S. harbors and coastal cities,  The   Washington Free Beacon  (WFB) reports. According to officials, the developmental unmanned underwater vehicle, or UUV, when it is deployed, will be outfitted with megaton-class nuclear warheads that can destroy key ports used by U.S. nuclear-armed and powered submarines like Kings Bay, Georgia, and Puget Sound in Washington state. The WFB noted that details surrounding the secret Russian drone sub are closely held within the U.S. government and intelligence community. The Pentagon has code-named the drone sub “Kanyon,” indicating that the sub is a structured arms program. According to the website, officials said the development of Kanyon is yet another indication of an aggressive nuclear forces modernization that has become a priority for Russian President Vladimir Putin. The developm...

By  Mikaprok   As our old friend “mad dog” Mattis once said: “Sequencing the DoD budget is more damaging to our willingness to repel attacks than the enemy on the battlefield.” OK, we got it. It is clear, exactly how the protection of military spending for 2018 will work – they will raise hysterics about Russia-something: “The US military spending has no space to grow. But they must increase from year to year – militarism creates additional labor. In principle, it is not very clear for now, what is more expensive: the mainland or boats that “protect” it. Autumn of FY never goes smoothly. Before the Russian Federation there were similar suspicions regarding China. It is believed that in 2007, terabytes of data concerning the F-35 Lightning II project, which later became the Chinese J-20, were stolen. Then they also discussed and increased the costs of computerization. Oracle concluded the largest single contract in the history of the IT industry and everyone peac...

Illustrative image On January 15, the UAE claimed that Qatari fighter jets had intercepted its civilian plane en route to Bahrain describing the move as a contravention of international law. The UAE said that it will take take all necessary measures to protect its civilian aircraft. The UAE General Civil Aviation Authority said that the incident was “a flagrant and dangerous threat to the safety of civil aviation, as well as a blatant violation of international laws and agreements.” However, a spokesperson for the Qatari Foreign Ministry denied the report in an interview with Al Jazeera TV. The reports is another indication of the growing tensions between Qatar and the Saudi-led bloc. In June 2017, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the UAE accused Qatar of being a state-sponsor of extremist groups and imposed economic sanctions on the country.

The  US military budget is $824.6 billion . US military spending is larger than the  next nine countries combined . The 2018 year budget of the Russian Defense Ministry  will total $46 bn . Despite the huge difference in expenditure, the military potentials of the two great powers are compared without offering indisputable conclusions. This is a very interesting phenomenon and many people wonder how it is possible. Launching a program of developing a new weapon system is a great responsibility – success is never guaranteed and there are always snags on the way. It’s an open secret that Russia’s R-30 Bulava submarine launched ballistic missile (SLBM) has been plagued with problems. It was not design but rather production quality. Thorough study has been done to overcome the  difficulties . It’s all over now as the recent tests show and the missile with enhanced ability to evade enemy anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defenses has entered service.  Another ...

Written by  Wayne Madsen ; Originally appeared at  strategic-culture.org One of the more welcomed outcomes of the paring back of the US State Department bureaucracy is the elimination of scores of “status quo enthusiasts.” Since the end of World War II, the State Department’s ranks have been populated by foreign service officers and career diplomats who have championed the international status quo. These minions of Foggy Bottom received encouragement for their protective stance on post-World War II and Cold War in President George H. W. Bush’s speech on September 11, 1990, which was titled, “Toward a New World Order.” Under the “new world order,” regional and global security concerns would supplant democratic independence movements. The immediate effect of this “order” was brutal crackdowns on secession in the periphery of the former Soviet Union, including Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria, as well as in Somalia, the Kurdish regions of Iraq and Turkey...

Click to see the full-size image On January 13, Saleh Muslim, a leader of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), revealed during an interview with the Hawar News Agency (ANHA) that the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) is planning to enter the northern Idlib governorate to fight “terrorism”. “The plan to enter Idlib is on the agenda of many countries and forces, including our forces [the SDF], and Idlib is a geographical area characterized by mountains, valleys and plains, and we will be up to the responsible of expelling all terrorist forces from it,” Muslim told ANHA. Muslim predicted that all forces in Syria will participate in Idlib’s battle and claimed that Turkish-backed armed groups will not fight against the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) unless Turkey directly participated in the fight. Moreover, the SDC leader stressed that no one can stop the SAA from capturing the strategic Abu Duhur airbase in the eastern Idlib countryside as it is a Syrian land. Muslim also cla...

By Finian Cunningham T here was near-unanimous welcoming of the surprise peace talks this week between North and South Korean delegations. Even the bellicose US President Donald Trump put aside his fiery rhetoric to endorse the diplomatic engagement between the two divided Koreas, saying he “hoped something good would result”. The two Korean sides met for 11 hours of  discussions  in the “peace village” of Panmunjom near the Demilitarized Zone that has separated the states since the Korean War (1950-53). The cordial handshakes and friendly words exchanged raised hopes that a major breakthrough was underway – this after a year of mounting tensions and fears of an all-out war breaking out on the Korean Peninsula. Russia and China lauded the opening of talks this week – the first in nearly two years of impasse – saying it was exactly what they had been prescribing for the past several months in order to calm escalating tensions. The United Nations secretary general Ant...

Click to see the full-size image The media wing of the Iraqi Popluar Mobilization Units (PMU) has released a video showing how the PMU dealed with ISIS suicide bombers during an active phase of the anti-ISIS operations in Iraq.