ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

FILE IMAGE: 9news . com .au On April 5, China launched an unprecedented in its dimension naval military drills in the South China Sea. The exercises involved the Liaoning aircraft carrier and more than 40 vessels from the North, East and South Sea fleets, which China’s military muscle. “China wants to show the outside world its determination to defend the fruits of its economic reforms over the past 40 years,” Chinese military analyst Zhou Chenming commented on the situation, according to “South China Morning Post”. Chinese military spokesman Ren Guoqiang confirmed that the aircraft carrier would lead large-scale naval drills, but that was “routine” exercises of China’s “defensive” military policy and those activities posed no threat to other countries. “Like the US, China’s military might is one of the government’s political tools to protect the country’s national interests”, Zhou Chenming emphasized. Beijing deployed naval forces in response to the US increasing ...

Airport security in most countries is already tight enough as it is, with multiple points of inspection often present beginning from the arrival area going inward. But there are some who think that security efforts can be increased even further. In Dubai, a new experimental robot is being tested , and its sole purpose is to find and catch suspicious or wanted individuals. Indeed, a robot that is said to have the ability to detect and also report any and all suspicious people will be deployed at Dubai airports very soon. While unprecedented, this initiative is already in its initial stages, with the implementation of the new robot currently undergoing a pilot phase. It is said that the robot will be placed mainly at the arrival section of the airport, and when you think about it, that’s about the best place that it could be positioned in. According to Khalid Al Zarooni, an innovation specialist at the Dubai Custom’s Innovation Center , this suspicious-people-targeting robot c...

On April 4, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and the National Defense Forces (NDF) secured several areas between the towns of Sabikhan and al-Salihiyah in the southern Deir Ezzor countryside from ISIS cells, according to the pro-government blog al-Masdar News. The media department of the SAA said that loads of weapons and ammunition including ATGMs, air-to-air missiles and IEDs were found by the SAA during a search and demining operation around the town of Sabikhan. On April 3, the SAA and the NDF launched a security operation  to eliminate the remaining ISIS cells in the southern Deir Ezzor countryside. So far, the SAA has secured more than 600 square kilometers, according to Syrian pro-government sources. From its side, the ISIS-linked news agency Amaq reported that ISIS fighters had targeted five positions of the SAA around al-Ghbrah in the southeastern Deir Ezzor countryside with SPG-9 recoilless rifles . Click to see the full-size image Click to see the full-size ima...

A screenshot from the video Following a series of reports on alleged fresh US casualties in Syria on April 2 and April 3 , rumors and speculations over the situation in the US-occupied part of Syria have developed further. On April 4, Telegram channel WarGonzo (one of the key sources of the rumors) claimed that 6 more US service members had been killed and 2 others injured in an IED blast on the road between Al-Shaddadah and Hasakah. The blast allegedly destroyed one armoured vehicle belonging to the US-led coalition. The IED had been allegedly planted by mysterious “local partisans” allegedly belonging to the group named “Popular Resistance In Eastern Region” [or “National Resistance Forces”]. Once again, no photos or videos confirming these claims were provided. The US-led coalition has not revealed any casualties. Meanwhile, videos showing alleged members of “Popular Resistance In Eastern Region” have appeared online. In the first video, Popular Resistance In Eastern R...

The US has deployed 300 additional soldiers in the Syrian city of Manbij, the Turkish state-run news agency Anadolu Agency reported on April 1. “The U.S. is taking measures against a possible counter-terror operation led by Turkey in Syria’s northern Manbij district,”  the state-run news agency wrote. According to the report, the reinforcements were deployed near the Sajur River, located near a contact line between Turkey-led forces and the area controlled by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), described by Ankara as a terrorist group, is the core of the SDF. On January 20, the Turkish military and its proxies started a large-scale military operation against the YPG in the Afrin area in northwestern Syria. On March 18, Turkish forces captured Afrin from the YPG. Over the past month, Turkish leadership have repeatedly threatened to launch a military operation in Manbij if the YPG remains deployed in the area. This...

Written by  Arkady Savitsky ; Originally appeared on  strategic-culture.org On March 23, 1983, 35 years ago, President Ronald Reagan unveiled his space-wars program, the  SDI , to intercept and destroy incoming missiles and other weapons for battling in this new domain. It never came to fruition, as the technology that existed at that time was insufficiently advanced to meet the requirements. But times change. It has been announced that the project is once again to be pursued. The US plans to deploy weapons in space, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov issued a  warn ing  about this in January. That warning proved accurate. Donald Trump  believes  that space is becoming a “warfighting domain,” just like the land, air, and sea, and is thus encouraging the creation of a space force on par with the other branches of the armed forces. It was hardly an off-the-cuff comment. The idea enjoys  strong support in Congress . Pushing forward such...