ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

A Chinese frigate launches a missile during a naval drill in the East China Sea. Photo: Weibo The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy conducted a series of live-fire drills and formation maneuvers in a large show of force off Hainan Island in the South China Sea and nearby areas in the period between March 24 and April 11. The drills involved the Liaoning aircraft carrier and more than 40 vessels from China’s North, East and South Sea fleets. Following the exercises, on April 12, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Xi Jinping reviewed the PLA Navy in the South China Sea, saying that the need to build a strong navy “has never been more urgent than today”, according to the state-run news agency Xinhua. More than 10,000 service personnel, 48 vessels and 76 aircraft took part in the review. On April 10, the USS Theodore Roosevelt  conducted aircraft operations  as it was passing the South China Sea on its way to Manila, the US newspaper Navy Times reported.

The Iranian National Gas Company intends to raise the country’s share in the global gas trade, focusing at the international markets, according to Iranian media. The Iranian liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports reportedly rose to around 500,000 metric tons in April. According to reports, this month’s shipments were 14 percent up from last month’s figure bringing this year’s total shipments to 1.86 million metric tons. China’s Oriental Energy Company (OE), loaded 34,000 tons of propane and 14,000 tons of butane supplied by Iranian Gas Commercial Co., aboard an LNG tanker at Iran’s Gulf port of Assaluyeh, which is scheduled to arrive at China’s Qinzhou on April 25. Another ship will bring 33,000 tons of propane and 11,000 tons of butane to Ningbo on May 12. The shipments of Iranian natural gas come as OE was recently ordered by a Texas state district court to pay $523.8 million in damages to Germany’s Mabanaft following an LPG contract dispute. The court decreed that OE had breache

According to The Sunday People , British counter terror police have ­identified a Russian assassin ­connected to the Salisbury poisonings – a 54-year-old former FSB spy – codename Gordon. “Detectives believe there was a team of six behind the novichok chemical ­attack on double agent Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33,” The Sunday People’s article says adding that the UK’s intelligence services have ­compiled a list of key suspects involved in last month’s attack in the poisoning incident. They even have Gordon’s photo: “Suspect: Killer ‘Gordon’ in the 1980s” Do you see yourself in this photo? It looks that all the locals should be carefully because they can be identified as Russian assassin “Gordon”. The UK provided this new “irrefutable proof” of the Russian involvement as their version of the incident clearly collapses. The OPCW was not able to identify the origin of the nerve agent used in the poisoning. The Swiss state laboratory Spiez released results o

FILE IMAGE It looks that the US-led April 14 missile strike on Syria has backfired and now Washignton and its allies are considering what do with consequences of their decision. Israel is especially unhappy. For example, its defense minister Avigdor Lieberman is in fire  over the possible S-300 supplies to Syria by Russia. “ What’s important to us is that the defensive weapons the Russians are giving Syria won’t be used against us. If they’re used against us, we’ll act against them ,” Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman told the Ynet newspaper in an obvious remark over the current situation. “If anyone attacks us,  we will retaliate, regardless of S-300, S-700 or any anything else’s presence there .” Lieberman claimed that Israel “doesn’t interfere in Syria’s internal affairs” adding that however, Israel will not allow Iran “to flood” Syria “with advanced weapons systems that would be aimed against Israel.” The defense minister’s remarks came a day after an obvio

Written by  J.Hawk  exclusively for  SouthFront Introduction The situation in Eastern Ukraine may undergo a dramatic transformation due to the imminent end of the so-called “anti-terrorist operation” (ATO) on April 30, and the subsequent “reformatting” of military operations in Eastern Ukraine, which could spell either an escalation or, rather to the contrary, the resumption of the peace process that has been moribund since the second round of Minsk Accords signed in the early months of 2015. US emissary Paul Volcker’s mission to Ukraine, which included meetings with Russia’s curator of Ukraine policy Surkov, did not lead to visible progress on any issues. The idea of peacekeepers had similarly bogged down in irreconcilable differences. Whereas Russia and the breakaway republics seek peacekeepers as a means to separate the warring parties, for Ukraine and the US they were seen as a means to isolate the republics from Russia as a prelude to their military conquest. Cold War 2?

There is a looming threat to military service members that could result in plenty of casualties. This threat comes in the form of small drones, particularly small unmanned aircraft systems (sUASs) which can be operated quite easily without the need for human pilots. Colloquially, they are referred to as drones, and can be purchased quickly by almost anyone, whether in physical stores or online, but they have the potential to be used as  hard-to-track killing machines . This is based on an unclassified version of a new report from the  National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine , which mentions that there may be  a number of adversarial groups  threatening deployed U.S. forces, especially those who belong to infantry units. It is said that both the U.S. Army and the U.S.  Department of Defense  (DOD) are already developing tactics and systems that can be used to counter such threats, but they are limited to just single sUASs. However, the report warns that there co

President of Turkey and Chairman of AK Party Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivers a speech during the meeting of local mayors at ATO Congresium in Ankara, Turkey on September 13, 2017. (Turkish Presidency / Yasin Bulbul / Handout – Anadolu Agency) Turkish President Recep Erdogan has once again slammed the US and other NATO member states for their military and political support to Kurdish militias operating in northern Syria. President Erdogan has even described the US-NATO actions as a threat to the Turkish security. “We cannot buy weapons from the US with our money, but unfortunately, the US and coalition forces give these weapons, this ammunition, to terrorist organizations for free,” Erdogan said in an interview on Turkish channel NTV. “So where does the threat come from? It comes primarily from strategic partners.” Erdogan also recalled that the US continues its military supplies to the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) despite Ankara’s repeated statement about

Note by the Saker : please read carefully what this official statement says.  There are two key elements here, first, the DPRK has successfully completed its program of nuclear tests and ballistic missiles test and, second, the DPRK will now act as a responsible nuclear power and never use its nuclear power unless she is attacked.  In plain English this simply means: we made it, you could not stop us, now we are a nuclear power on par with all the rest of them and there is nothing you can do about it.  No doubt, the Hegemony’s propaganda machine will present that as a huge, immense, victory for Trump.  In reality, it is anything but.  Truth be told, I personally doubt that the DPRK has a real nuclear warhead or anything beyond an intermediate-range missile.  But that is neither here nor there because whatever the facts of the matter really are, the fact that they themselves declare that they have real nuclear warheads and ICBMs and that nobody can do anything about it means that they